Electronic Intelligence
by Prioris
Summary: Post-Fusion. When the Federation condemns Adam for his role in the BSL Incident, Samus enlists the help of a young scientist to save him. As sinister forces array against them, they must race against time to uncover a conspiracy of galactic proportions.
1. Prologue: The Broken Sword

Electronic Intelligence  
a Metroid fan-fiction

Disclaimer: The characters, events and locations of the _Metroid_ universe belong to Nintendo and Retro Studios. I don't own them, nor am I profiting from this venture. All other characters and situations are mine; if you want to re-use them, please ask first. Attack lawyers may be checked at the bar; they'll be returned when you leave...

This story is set post-_Fusion, _and like the vast majority of the games in the series, is rated T for violence and language.

_Soundtrack: "Prelude," zircon, from the Antigravity album, and "Operation Market Garden," Michael Giacchino, from the Medal of Honor: Vanguard soundtrack._

* * *

Prologue: The Broken Sword

_2.23.2026 C.C.  
Task Force Aegis, Nereid Sector_

"N-space reentry in three, two, one... and bubble down," Helmsman Peter Wilson muttered to himself. "God, I hate N-space transits. Two days of bus drivin', with our asses hangin' out for all the galaxy to see."

As one, the vessels of Task Force Aegis - the battlecruiser _GFS Claimh Solais,_ the frigate _GFS Dunkirk,_ the assault carrier _GFS Paul Young_ and her complement of Marines, and the non-combatant ship tender _GFAS Hestia - _returned to the normal universe in four identical boils of energy as their hyper bubbles dissipated. The task force had recently completed a major reconnaissance of Space Pirate holdings in the Crux Sector, and up to this point, they had made their escape completely undetected. However, their route home contained one major bottleneck: the Nereid Traverse, a cluster of some fifty-odd white dwarfs and neutron stars that, thanks to their collective mass and spacing, effectively prevented faster-than-light travel.

Thanks to the miracle of physics that was the Alcubierre bubble drive, FTL travel provided the most perfect cloaking system ever devised. Although a ship under way still radiated energy and heat as normal within its hyper bubble, the enormous tidal forces at the bubble's edges prevented all forms of mass and energy from entering or exiting, rendering the ship all but invisible. The bubble itself, propelled at several times the speed of light by the warped space surrounding it, defeated all lightspeed sensors through sheer speed; by the time a laser or radar could achieve a trace, the bubble and the ship within would be long gone. Normal or "N" space, on the other hand, offered no such safety cloak. Stealth systems could minimize or mask the vast majority of a starship's electromagnetic spectrum emissions, but they weren't infallible, and they did nothing for the visible spectrum - any sufficiently motivated observer could look out a porthole and see a vessel under EM stealth, no matter how good that stealth system might be. To a spacer, N-space travel in a hyper-capable ship posed many of the same dangers as a submariner might experience on the surface, along with the same distinct feeling of nudity.

"You hate the whole damn universe, Wilson," commented his counterpart, Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Taylor. "You hate N-space, you hate hyper, you hate flying, you hate the ground, you hate the Navy, you hate civilians. You want to take a shot at death and taxes while you're at it, too?"

"I don't like havin' that bounty hunter on board, either," Wilson continued, ignoring Taylor's riposte. "Dude gives me the creeps, for one. And nobody knows nothin' 'bout him."

"That would be a big part of the point, Pete," Taylor replied, adjusting his helm controls. "One, he's a private military contractor, he's not exactly going to advertise what he does for a living. Two, he's special ops. You expect him to walk around with a big sign on his chest saying 'Ask me about being a secret agent'?"

"No, it's more 'n that, man. Dude don't talk to no one, he don't take his armor off, ain't no one seen him in the chow hall, the racks or the head. That ain't natural, man."

"So? Probably he lives in officers' country. They wouldn't make him slum it with us."

PO1 Christine Andrews, the engineering technician, glanced over at the bickering helmsmen. "Men," she grumbled, shaking her head at their conversation. "Honest to God, you're all clueless. You don't see me or Emmons in the racks or the head – do you think we're unnatural?"

Taylor grinned lasciviously at that. "Yes, Andrews, I do think you're unnatural. Goddesses are unnatural by definition."

"In your dreams, flyboy. On second thought, don't."

Wilson shook his head, ducking and dropping his voice low as though to impart some great secret. "Yanno what I think? I think... he's a robot."

Taylor burst out laughing at that, which earned them both dirty looks from the XO. In a quieter tone, he continued, "Pete, have you ever _seen_ an autonomous combat vehicle? They're three meters tall and on six legs. You couldn't even fit the computer core in a human-sized body."

The fire control tech, Sandra Emmons, just sighed good-naturedly. For her money, the bounty hunter was actually quite nice, once you learned to look past the armor.

"Well, he could be a cyborg," Wilson countered. "A robot body with a human brain inside. I seen an old vid 'bout it. Dude was a high-hat, got shot all to hell and they put his head on a robot body, an' he was all wastin' bad guys left an' right an' the people who built him was really bad guys too an'--"

"Whatever, Wilson. You're a paranoid freak and you watch way too much bad science fiction, has anyone ever told you that?"

"Aw, c'mon! What theory have you got that's better?"

Andrews shrugged, leaning back in her chair. "Try this on: 'he' is really a _she._ ...No, really, this is no shit - I heard it from Huether in Damage Control. This Marine, Dawkins I think her name was, went down to the armory one night on her off watch 'cause her rifle was acting up, and there was this tall blonde chick in there working on the hunter's armor suit. Now, she'd never seen anyone like that aboard before, but figured she was just one of the armory techs, so she gave the girl her piece and asked her to fix it. Thing was, when she asked around later, the section supervisor told her that not only did he not have any such tech on his crew, but there wasn't even supposed to be anyone in the armory that night. So she goes busting back down there, all in a panic because she thinks there's a stowaway aboard who's got her rifle, and finds it in the small-arms locker, in perfect working condition, with a note taped to it saying 'For PFC Dawkins: You're welcome. S.A."

Wilson and Taylor both thought about that for a second, and then began to snicker. "Good one, Andrews. You really had us going there."

"Stow the chatter, people," Lieutenant Commander Patel, the executive officer, said crossly.

A new voice joined the conversation a second later, that of the sensors tech. Unlike the helmsmen, his contribution was strictly business. "Conn, Sensors. Possible contact bearing 233 mark 015 relative. Signal keeps fluctuating, can't determine a range to target."

"Noted," the XO replied. "Designate contact Uniform Five."

"Contact so designated." On the tactical plot, a large holographic "tank" in the center of the CIC, a yellow line marked "U5," the fifth unknown contact they'd encountered on this mission, winked into existence just above, ahead and to the left of the blue icons representing the task force ships. A moment later, the line resolved into a series of icons, hovering well above them. "Conn, Sensors. Uniform Five positively identified. It's a Space Pirate convoy. Three Corsair-class frigates and one Blackbeard-class battlecruiser. Range to targets 15,000 kilometers. Recommend redesignation as Hotel Twenty-Nine through Thirty-Two."

Patel frowned at that. This far into Federation space, a Space Pirate attack squad would have to be either hopelessly lost or suicidal. "Redesignate Uniform Five as Hotel Twenty-Nine through Thirty-Two. Helm, make your course 045 mark 090. Comms, call Commander Malkovich to the CIC."

"What's the situation?" Commander Adam Malkovich said as he arrived in the Combat Information Center moments later.

"Sir, we've detected a group of Space Pirate warships in the area," the XO replied, indicating the four "Hotel" or hostile icons on the tactical plot. "We're running a target motion analysis on them right now, but it looks like they're following us."

"Stealth systems?"

Patel nodded at the unspoken question. "Working perfectly, and they've been running since we dropped out of hyper; and nobody's going to get an optical at fifteen thousand K. As far as anyone knows, we don't even exist."

"You think they've made us?" Adam asked, folding his arms as he studied the tac plot.

"Not sure, Sir. On the one hand, they aren't doing anything unusual, but on the other, there shouldn't _be_ Space Pirates in this sector. We've claimed the Nereids for years." Patel sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Something smells, and it's not the recycling system."

"Conn, Sensors. I have a transient... no, multiple transients on 270 and 125 relative..." A fraction of a second later, the tech ripped off his datashades, leaping up to yell over his commissioned counterpart. "_Missile launch!_ Multiple missiles inbound!"

"Maintain present course and speed," Adam countered. "They're probably trying to flush us out. We're stealthed, they won't be able to get a lock."

The sensors officer's next report gave the lie to the CO's confident pronouncement. "Conn, Sensors. We've been locked up - they have missile lock. Range eleven thousand kilometers and closing. Sir, we have a radiation warning."

"They broke our stealth? How...?" Patel whispered.

Adam said nothing, looking over the tac plot to the XO. By anyone's logic, this scenario should not be happening. The odds of the Pirates finding them in Federation territory, defeating Federation stealth, and risking a war by firing on them unprovoked were astronomical, to put it lightly.

"Sir, those missiles have nukes," the sensors officer repeated.

"Sound Condition Red. Helm, evasive maneuvers. Weps, launch countermeasures," Adam replied. "Comms, hail them. Tell them they're in Federation space and they have exactly ten seconds to SD those missiles and clear the area before we start shooting."

"Aye, aye, Sir. Executing evasive pattern Sierra One."

"Conn, Weps. Countermeasures away."

The crewman at the communications console shook his head. "No response to our hail, Sir. They're jamming the whole low band. Nothing's getting through."

A moment later, the sensors officer added, "Conn, Sensors. Hotel Fourteen is turning broadside to. Missile launch – Hotel Twenty-Nine and Thirty have fired. Another Pirate squad just dropped bubbles at 125 mark 120 relative, range seven thousand kilometers. Two more Corsairs and a troop carrier, Hotels Thirty-Three through Thirty-Five. Hotel Thirty-Three is launching small craft."

Patel folded his arms, grimacing. "Bastards are trying to flank us."

Adam nodded once, his expression deadly serious. "I know. Scramble the Rapier squad. Comms, tell _Hestia _to clear the area and have _Dunkirk_ and _Paul Young_ get on the troop carrier. Weps, put a rail salvo in that capital ship. See if that doesn't make them change their minds."

"Aye, aye, sir," the weapons officer echoed. Over his tactical communications link, he continued, "Helm, maintain present course and speed. Fire control, make ready the main battery. Sensors, please advise when you have target lock."

The deck trembled under their feet and the lights flickered as the colossal kinetic accelerator guns began their warm-up program. The guns' firing capacitors began to bank vast amounts of power from the ship's main reactors, as massive tungsten-steel rails, each tipped with a depleted uranium penetrator, slid into the launch coils. The rails carried no warheads, but they didn't need them; their own mass was warhead enough. As they traveled at fractions of the speed of light itself, the rails' kinetic energy upon impact would dwarf any mere chemical or nuclear explosion.

"Weps, Sensors. Hard lock on Hotel Thirty-Two."

The weapons officer glanced at Adam, who nodded. "Fire."

The _Claimh Solais_ rocked hard under the guns' recoil as five rails leaped from the launchers, crossing the distance between the two ships at .25_c_. At such short range, the enemy vessel had no time to dodge or defend against the sure doom streaking her way. The impacts lit up the Pirate battlecruiser in a hellish blaze of energy, obliterating most of her midsection and breaking the ship's spine. As the amputated remains of the bow drifted helplessly away into space, the battlecruiser's remaining fuel bunkers ignited in the stern, finishing what the Federation weapons had started.

"Conn, Sensors. Five for five on that shot. The Blackbeard's had it."

"Conn, Weps. Reloading. Four minutes to cap charge."

"Good," Adam replied. "Target the Corsairs next. Sensors, how's the rest of the force doing?"

"Conn, Sensors. _Paul Young_ is deploying Marines to the troop carrier. Foxtrots One through Fifteen should make boarding in five minutes, give or take. _Dunkirk_ just scored a Corsair. She's--hang on, got transients... _Dunkirk_ took a direct hit up the stern from one of the remaining Corsairs. Nuke warhead. She's launching escape pods..." The sensors officer looked up from his datashades, his face ashen. "Sir, the Pirates' small craft are moving to intercept. They're... they're firing on the pods."

A sickened hush fell over the CIC. Servicepeople in life pods were universally considered to have surrendered. By firing on the pods, the Pirates had just murdered prisoners of war – also universally considered to be a war crime.

"Conn, Sensors. We're detecting another Pirate force at 000 mark 175, range fifteen thousand kilometers. Two capital ships and five frigates. The force at 125 is moving to intercept us. Hotel Thirty-Four and Thirty-Five have both fired missiles. Range fourteen thousand kilometers and closing. Radiation warning."

"You know the drill," Adam countered, and once again the battleship threw up its shield of countermeasures and evasive action. The countermeasures managed to draw off all but one of the enemy munitions, which continued its unerring flight toward the Federation vessel.

"Conn, Sensors. Seven missiles hit the countermeasures, one survived. Range two thousand kilometers and closing."

"Helm, come to 090 mark 000. All ahead emergency," Patel barked. "Sound colli--"

Nuclear fury engulfed the _Claimh Solais'_ stern as the Pirate missile detonated several hundred kilometers from her hull, and unsecured people and objects turned into projectiles as the ship lurched and twisted under the force of the explosion. The lights flickered and died, replaced a moment later by the red emergency lighting, giving the ship an even more hellish appearance than the damage would have indicated. Improbable though it seemed, they had gotten off lucky; the missile's warhead had been improperly fuzed, activating well before the missile actually struck the hull. Had the missile made contact, they never would have felt a thing. As it was, nearly a third of the crew had either died immediately or been doomed to a slightly slower but no less certain fate, courtesy of the vast amount of radiation generated by the explosion.

"Status," Adam managed to choke out, hauling himself to his feet as smoke filtered through the air.

"Conn, Engineering," Andrews said in a somewhat unsteady voice, wiping blood from a nasty cut down the side of her face. "Reactors all offline. Engine room says the Chief Engineer's dead. We have emergency power for maneuvering, and life support is still operational, but that's about all. Damage control teams are deploying, what's left of 'em."

"Conn, Sensors. We're more or less blind. Radiation flux killed everything but the optical sights."

No response came from the helm, as the seats were occupied by an unconscious man and a corpse.

"Conn, Weps. Main guns 4 and 5 are offline, and 3's giving bad power readings. Coils must've got torched when the nuke went off."

"Conn, Comms. We've lost hyper comm and radio, laser comm is still OK. _Hestia_ reports she's being locked up, requests assistance. Rapier squad commander says they're holding their own, but reports several dozen inbound Shrikes and Coffins and says they can't keep them off us much longer."

Adam stared at the now-frozen tactical plot for several seconds, which resembled the grasping claw of an amusement park game as the Pirates' forces encircled his remaining ships in three dimensions, cutting off any hope of escape. Nor could they stand and fight toe-to-toe with the Pirates, at least not if they expected to win. As powerful as the Federation ships' kinetic guns were, they simply couldn't fire and reload fast enough, and now he didn't have enough of them. Finally, with the FTL communications systems destroyed, he had no way of calling for help or even notifying the Fleet of his command's fate.

"Your orders, Sir?"

The commander's eyes probed the data, searching for any possible gap in the Pirates' offensive front. After a long moment, he shook his head slowly. Another few seconds passed, and then Adam looked up from the plot with a strangely calm expression. "Order all non-essential crew to the life pods. Signal to the rest of the task force – whatever's left of it – that we are abandoning ship. I will stay aboard and continue the fight as long as she'll hold out, and then scuttle the ship."

"Then on behalf of the bridge crew, I'd like to respectfully decline, Sir," the XO replied. "You can't fight the ship by yourself."

Adam paused, looking at each man and woman in turn. "Does he speak for all of you?"

"Yes, Sir," the weapons officer said, followed by the sensors officer, who added, "Those bug bastards killed my brother at Tau Ceti, Sir. If they want both of us, they're gonna remember the cost."

"The Pirates are going to murder us anyway if we go to the pods. I'd rather go down fighting," said the communications officer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all," Adam said quietly. "Call a medic up here to take care of the wounded. Mr. Patel, you have the conn. I'll see to the destruction of the file systems. Pass the word for our special operative to come see me in the ready room ASAP."

* * *

Alone in his ready room, Adam sat before his computer terminal, waking it out of sleep mode and calling up the command subsystems. An identification prompt greeted him, as a standard palmprint plate slid out of a recess built into the control board. He pressed his right hand to the touchplate, leaving it there for the authentication system to run a DNA scan. A moment later the machine bleeped, flashing a new message across the screen.

_**Identity confirmed: SN #877534112 CDR Adam Malkovich  
Please select a command from the main menu, or select "Help" for Technical Services.**_

He selected the security sub-menu, and instructed the computer to purge its data banks, starting with cryptography and ship's logs, and then proceeding to navigation, weapons and engine control at his next prompt. Even if the Pirates did manage to capture the _Claimh Solais,_ they would find nothing but an unflyable mountain of metal.

_**Purge cycle initiated. Please wait...**_

For just a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of self-pity as he watched the progress bar inch across the screen. None of this had been in the cards when they had left Earth a fortnight ago. Their mission had been top secret, unknown to all but a select handful of Navy intelligence officers, and up to that point, it had proceeded flawlessly. They had roamed the Crux Sector at will, operating behind enemy lines and infiltrating their facilities with impunity. The hardware taps, kernel-level override mechanisms and old-fashioned viruses the infiltration teams had left behind would hamstring the Pirates' operations for months, and the data they had collected from their computers and communications would inform Federation defense planning well into the future.

And yet, somehow, the Pirates had managed to learn of Task Force Aegis' existence and set a trap to kill them before they could deliver their information. Adam knew with certainty that the Pirates could not have broken their stealth, as the task force had sailed through the entirety of the Pirate Alpha Fleet without so much as a sniff. Which, in turn, implied that the Pirates must have acquired at least one mole within the Department of Intelligence, who had told them where and when to find the task force at its sole vulnerable moment – while transiting the no-hyper zone of the Nereid Sector.

_Well, it wouldn't be the first time the spook squad got our people killed,_ he thought morbidly. Unbidden, his mind drifted to the conversation he'd had with Captain Hackworth three weeks before: his careful presentation of the evidence, the surprise and slow anger in the DFDI officer's eyes. He had believed his action would save Federation lives. It was just a bit rich, he thought, that it had come too late to save him and his command.

The whine of the ready room hatch startled him out of his musings, admitting a large, faceless humanoid figure in bright yellow and red powered armor. "You sent for me?" it said, in an inflectionless, synthesized voice.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," Adam said absently. Looking up from his terminal, he continued in a much more direct tone, "Lose the brain bucket, Lady. Nobody's looking, and I'd rather say this face to face."

The armored figure considered that for a second, and then reached under its helmet's chin for a hidden release mechanism. The helmet came unsealed with a hiss of pressurized air, and the hunter pulled it off and casually tucked it under its - or rather, her - arm.

"All right, Adam, spill," she said, with the hint of a smirk. "Either we're all going to die and you want to say our last goodbyes, or else we're on one of those make-over shows and this is when they break the big surprise. I hope it involves a new paint job - this primary colors gig is getting kind of boring..."

"Smart ass," Adam chuckled at his favorite protegé's teasing, but the levity didn't last. "And sadly, you're more right than you know."

"On which count?" she replied.

"Our cover is blown and we're under attack from a Pirate raiding force. As a result, I'm giving you a new mission: data courier." He stood and walked over to the wall safe, palmprinting it open and removing a stack of optical disks from within. "This is our final report – everything we've collected on Pirate operations during this mission. Your job is to make sure it gets to the Defense Ministry."

"So we'll still make the report ourselves," Samus said diffidently, with as much of a shrug as her armor would allow. "Big deal if the Pirates found us. We'll wipe the floor with them and be on our way. Just another day at the office – or am I missing something?"

"Your confidence is inspiring, but I'm afraid this might be going down a little differently." Adam folded his arms, his expression deadly serious. "I don't know if you saw the tac plot on your way in, but to make a long story short, we have been screwed in detail. There are three Pirate squads surrounding us. Cap ships, frigates and destroyers, troop ships, small craft, the works. _Dunkirk_ already went down, and the Pirates launched a strike against her escape pods. Killed every last one."

Something ugly glittered in the hunter's cool blue gaze at that statement.

Adam shook his head at Samus' unspoken declaration. "I know, but now isn't the time. You may as well know that we're next. _Paul Young_ got her boarding craft away, but those poor sons of bitches won't have a ship to come back to. The hit we took killed the engines and two-thirds of our main battery. And of course, the _Hestia is_ just cannon fodder. Barring divine intervention, TF Aegis will cease to exist within the next ten minutes or so."

Samus frowned deeply, not liking the commander's words one bit. "You can't just roll over and let them kill you. There _has_ to be a way out. You've done it before."

Adam just sighed, turning his palms upward in a _what else can we do_ gesture. "They have the numbers, the weapons and the tactical advantage. The absolute best we could hope for is to take some of them with us. Which we'll do, but that doesn't leave the Council with anything but a few neatly folded flags. This intel _needs_ to get through to Daiban, and you're the only one who can do it."

"And I'm supposed to leave you here to die?" Samus shot back. "Adam, think about it. You have a career, a wife, a family. I'm disposable – bounty hunters are a credit a dozen. If anyone 'needs' to get that data out of here, it's you. Let me stay here and deal with the Pirates. You go."

"That isn't your call to make," Adam said, not unkindly. "I can't abandon my command."

A distinct note of desperation crept into the hunter's voice. "Adam, _please,_ this isn't right_--_"

"It's part of the game, Samus, you know that. Some must live and some must die. I'm telling you – _ordering_ you – to live." Turning back to the command console, he tapped in a series of codes, unlocking the hatches along a path leading to one of the _Claimh Solais'_ fighter bays. "Get down to Bay Two, there's one Rapier left that you can use. Do not let yourself be tracked by any hostiles. Once you're past the hyper boundary, make all speed for Daiban and deliver this data to the Minister of Defense. Any objections, Lady?"

The old phrase drew an unwilling half-smile, even as it tore at her heart. "No, sir."

"Good." Adam studied her for a long moment and then smiled, taking her helmet from her and locking it back on her head, in much the same manner as a father checking over his child's coat and boots before sending her out on a rainy day. "You've always made me proud, Samus. It's been an honor to know you."

"I..." There was so much she wanted to say, but the words choked in her throat, and it wouldn't have felt right to say goodbye in the helmet's voice in any case. Instead, she tapped a lightly closed fist against the left side of her chest plate.

"I know. Go on, get out of here."

Eight minutes later, as a lone single-seat fighter edged out of the Nereid Traverse and winked away into hyper, a quartet of nuclear fireballs bloomed, faded and died among the silent stars.

* * *

Author's Notes: "He would understand that some must live and some must die... He knew what it meant. He made that sacrifice once."

PO1 Andrews' reveal of Samus' identity is a bit of an inside joke: "This is no shit" is universally understood in naval jargon to signify a sea story, which, of course, is 100 percent unadulterated B.S. No wonder nobody believed her. ;-)

Since several people have asked about various concepts in this chapter, here are some fast explanations:

Navigating in space requires two things: a directional system capable of dealing with four axes of travel (X, forward/back; Y, left/right; Z, up/down; and time), and a fixed reference point from which to relate positions and distances. Thus, directions in space are always written as (XY bearing) mark (Z bearing) (reference), where the reference can be either absolute (some fixed point in space, such as a star) or relative to the ship's bow which is arbitrarily set at 000 mark 090. This universe uses the metric system exclusively. Short distances are given in kilometers; longer distances use the various light-time fractions (light-minute, light-year, etc). For reference, a light-second is 299,793 km.

Ships under faster-than-light drive are referred to as in "hyper," despite the fact that there isn't a separate universe of "hyperspace" like you see in _Star Trek_ or other sci-fi-universes. "N-space" is spoken shorthand for "normal space," or the conventional universe. FTL drive works by creating a "bubble" of normal space which is propelled along a region of warped space, such that space in front of the bubble is compressed and space behind is stretched. (This is a real-life concept; search Wikipedia for "Alcubierre drive.") Astute readers might have noticed that bubble drive travel has an upper bound on range; if no matter or energy can escape a hyper bubble in operation, eventually the ship will start to take damage from its own heat and radiation emissions as they build up within the bubble. To avoid this, an FTL ship must drop bubble every so often to "vent" this energy. Thus, a ship's range in FTL is limited by how large a bubble it can generate; larger bubbles take longer to reach this energy saturation point, but require much more energy to generate and maintain. Speed, conversely, is dependent on how powerfully the drive can warp the space around the bubble, which favors a smaller bubble (less energy for bubble creation leaves more for warping).

Also, I'm in the market for a beta reader. In particular, I'd appreciate assistance with plot and pacing. If you're interested, drop me a PM.

_Edited 9/26/08: acronyms removed for clarity, and tech notes moved from Chapter 1 to prologue. Thanks to those who pointed this out._


	2. Ghost in the Machine

Chapter 2: Ghost in the Machine

_Soundtrack: John Rutter arr. Cambridge Singers, "Agnus Dei," from the Requiem and Magnificat._

* * *

_1.10.2032  
GFS _Loki_, within the Sigma Reticuli system_

Sleek, silent and deadly, a Federation Navy Griffin-class frigate cruised silently through the desolation of the Sigma Reticuli system, dropping out of hyper mere light-seconds from the primary to hide her bubble signature from prying eyes. In any other ship, the maneuver would have guaranteed instant death for all hands aboard, but it was just another combat evolution for the GFS _Loki_, an custom spaceframe specially built for stealth and stuffed full of experimental equipment decades ahead of the state of the art. The special treatment didn't stop with the hardware, either. _Loki_'s entire crew consisted of Special Warfare-qualified personnel, and she carried a full squad of Force Reconnaissance Marines into the bargain. As the unofficial flagship for the Defense Forces Special Operations Command, the _Loki_ specialized in special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism and other unconventional forms of warfare. Even her unit crest emphasized the ship's "dirty tricks" reputation, depicting a court jester with a cream pie in one hand and a knife hidden behind his back in the other.

And for this mission, every man and woman aboard knew they'd be playing quite a lot of dirty tricks. The mission file itself was classified as all their missions were, but the Federation didn't train dummies for its special forces, and the knowledge of their destination and their equipment loadout had told most of the crew everything they needed to know. Something had gone wrong with a biowarfare project, either on SR388 or at the massive new orbital laboratory Biologic Space Labs had built in that world's orbit, and when the usual tactic of sending heavily armed private military contractors had failed, the _Loki_ had been tasked to clean it up - and eliminate any witnesses to the effort. As a result, the crew had maintained combat alert throughout the eighteen-hour transit from their base at Valerian Station, drilling and simulating against every possible contingency.

In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the rest of the ship, though, the commanding officer's quarters offered a peaceful, even luxurious atmosphere. A single desk lamp threw a warm glow across the cabin, and the media center played Rutter's _Requiem_ at low volume. In the far corner, Rear Admiral Charles Renard napped peacefully in the overstuffed leather armchair, a book on electronic surveillance tactics splayed across his chest.

A light tapping on the hatch startled the admiral awake, and still half-dozing, he snarled out, "The hell?"

The voice of his adjutant replied nervously. "Rogers, sir. Permission to step inside?"

"Not if you're going to stand there sniveling on the doorstep," Renard snapped, straightening his somewhat rumpled uniform and running his fingers through his steel-gray brush cut in an attempt to improve his appearance before the adjutant arrived.

The adjutant, a thin, nervous young lieutenant junior grade, opened the hatch and stepped inside quickly. "What's got you so worked up, Rogers?" Renard snarled, taking in the man's thunderstruck expression. "They run out of milk and cookies in the officers' mess?"

Rogers tried his best to ignore the barb. Throughout the fleet, Admiral Renard had gained no small degree of notoriety for abusing junior officers, and no one ever lasted longer than a year as his adjutant. "Sir, we've arrived in the Sigma Reticuli system, but we have a bit of a problem."

"Then go fix it. I have better things to do than listen to you cry about your incompetence."

"Sir, it's not that kind of problem," Rogers said, forcing his growing frustration aside. "It's a problem with the mission area. Sir, the Biologic Labs facility..." He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the impending explosion. "It's gone, Sir. And so is most of SR388."

A second later, the adjutant flew across the corridor as Admiral Renard stormed out of the cabin.

"Admiral on deck!" the officer of the deck cried as the admiral stepped through the hatchway into the _Loki_'s Combat Information Center.

"As you were," Renard replied peevishly. "Report."

"Sir, as is standard procedure, we conducted a navigation check as soon as we dropped out of hyper. When we didn't detect the BSL station's location transponders, I ordered a visual and sensors sweep of the area. As you can see, sir, that's an external view from the bow cameras..." the officer of the deck trailed off, waving a hand to the large monitors that comprised the forward third of the CIC.

Approximately a light-minute from the _Loki_'s position, a seething mass of rock and magma, less of a planet now than a loosely aggregated collection of rubble, hung uneasily in space. Whatever cataclysm had transpired here had stripped off the planet's atmosphere and much of the surface, leaving behind only a shattered, sterile shell. The remains of SR388 would spiral toward its sun for a few more years, and eventually drift into stellar annihilation. Of the giant hollowed-out asteroid that had lately housed Biologic Space Labs' research facilities, no trace remained.

"How did this happen?" Renard asked, his voice shaking with anger.

"We're still investigating, sir, but our simulations indicate that someone intentionally deorbited the station into the planet."

"Any survivors? I can only hope they all went down with the station."

The officer of the deck blinked a bit at that, as did most of the CIC crew, but to his credit, he only hesitated for a moment before responding. "Possible but unlikely, sir. We did detect one drive trace headed out of the system, originating in high planetary orbit and ending at the hyper limit. It's pretty clear that someone or something escaped the station, but at present we can't say who or what they were, or where they might have gone."

"I see." Admiral Renard stared at the monitor for a long moment, and then turned away. "We'll maintain station keeping here for the time being. I'll be in my cabin. Rogers, have Major Armstrong see me ASAP."

Ten minutes after departing the CIC, the admiral still sat in his desk chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he ruminated on the sudden downturn in his mission plan. This wouldn't go down well with his superiors at the Defense Forces Department of Intelligence at all, to say nothing of the higher powers to which he reported. Their orders to him had been crystal clear: return with at least one "humaniform specimen" or don't bother. To not only fail at that, but have to report the loss of all the other "special projects" BSL had hosted - unconsciously, he reached a hand to his throat, fingering the crown insignia attached to his collar tabs, and for a split second, he wondered if this would be the last time he'd wear them.

This was why it was utter madness to rely on private contractors for black warfare, Renard thought - at the end of the day, they were still barely better than rank amateurs. Any Academy plebe could do better. Take, for example, this joker of a bounty hunter whose mess had forced the commissioning of this mission. Not planetside half an hour, and the idiot comes down with some plague nobody's ever heard of - though, if past history was any guide, that was merely par for the course. Time after time, the powers that be would pay mind-boggling sums to hire this freak, and every time she'd come back empty-handed, having blown up a planet or at least a space station, and spin a bag full of tales about mythical creatures and horrible threats to galactic civilization. That the idiots in the Grand Council kept buying her spiel firmly cemented Renard's belief that all politicians were useless baggage to be gotten rid of as soon as practically possible. Had he been in charge, this Aran clown would have been publicly strung up after the first go-round on Zebes. Instead, she'd been rewarded, celebrated, and then been set loose on the galaxy once again, with - to Renard's mind - completely predictable results.

"Sir, Major Armstrong to see you," Rogers whispered, interrupting his poisonous mood.

"Took him long enough, the goddamned plug-headed gyrene," Renard spat. Turning back to his adjutant, he snarled, "So open the hatch for him, you drooling imbecile! Now get lost - I don't want to see your sorry hide again for the next hour. Dismissed."

Rogers didn't need to be told twice; he scuttled out of the cabin, only wanting to get as far away as possible before Renard changed his mind.

'Major' Joseph Armstrong – as there could be only one captain on any Federation vessel, Marine captains were always referred to as the next higher rank while embarked – stood at attention just outside the hatchway. If he had overheard Renard's tirade, he gave no sign of it. "Reporting as ordered, sir."

"Sit down, Armstrong," the admiral said in a much calmer tone, waving at one of his chairs. "Tell me, what do you know about Samus Aran?"

The Marine officer's brow furrowed as he thought about his answer. "Tough, resourceful, highly skilled in single operator tactics. Hell of a lot smarter than she lets on. Doesn't work well in a chain of command. Tends to destroy things first and ask questions later." Armstrong inclined his head to one side as he added, "Was there some particular information you were looking for, sir?"

"Have you been briefed on what happened to the BSL station and SR388?" Off Armstrong's nod, Renard continued, "Well, the gee-whiz gang seems to think that she set the station on a crash course with the planet, and then triggered the self-destruct system inside the atmosphere. Best guess is that she was trying to set up an airburst to sterilize the planet. What I want to know is, do you think that's something she would do?"

"With all due respect, sir, not a chance," Armstrong replied. "Sure, she'd destroy the station, but not by smacking it into a planet. She'd just light the self-destruct in orbit and have done with it. Besides, I can't imagine why she'd want SR388 sterilized anyway. Her mission was on BSL. It had nothing to do with the planet."

Admiral Renard frowned at that, anger beginning to simmer behind his eyes once more. "You're sure?"

"Well, sir, I was a first lieutenant during the Phaaze Incident, and I served with her on Urtragia. I figure I know her about as well as anyone, and what you told me doesn't track at all. For one thing, there are too many factors to go wrong, and she's the kind of operator who lives and dies by the KISS principle. Smash and grab, take down the target and book out, and when in doubt, blow it up. To someone like that, trying to set up a chain reaction like the one you described would be so far out of their element that they wouldn't even dream of trying."

"Hmm. I see your point." Renard waved his hand dismissively. "That'll be all."

Armstrong stood, saluted and turned to leave, but paused in the hatchway. "Sir, if I may?"

"What is it, Armstrong?" the admiral said, a bit sharply.

"She was issued a Hermes, if I remember the mission package correctly. Well, sir, there are a few of those that have an AI embarked, and I'm pretty sure her boat was one that did."

Renard stared at the Marine with barely disguised impatience. "What's your point?"

"Sir, I wonder if maybe nuking the planet wasn't her idea."

Armstrong saluted again and excused himself, leaving the admiral to chew on his theory.

_I'm sure that dumb jarhead was just spouting off, but it can't hurt to check out his idea,_ Renard thought as he opened his desktop terminal. A quick sequence of commands took him into the military information network, where he queried the mission profile system for all information referencing Biologic Space Labs and SR388.

_**GFDF Joint Information Access System  
Operation Profile – Summary View**_

_**Search term: Biologic OR Laboratories OR BSL AND SR388  
Search results: 2  
Operations 1-2 listed. Select a link to display mission details.**_

_**Op #: 81205  
Op Brief: Investigate distress signal from Biologic Space Labs facility at SR388.  
****Op Commander: LTCOL F. LeBlanc, CO 2/2 MEU  
Requested Personnel - GFDF: N/A  
****Requested Personnel – Other:  
-Private contractor: Aran, Samus (See attached for PMC use rationale and contract data)  
Requested Ships/Equipment:  
-GFS PH-1076  
-Registry: GFNGL390522PH1076 Hermes-class system patrol vessel  
-FTL-capable: Yes / Atmosphere-capable: No / Engines: 1  
-Armament: "Archer" point defense laser x2****  
-Data network: AICAS Mark I  
-Crew capacity: 3**_

_**Op #: 81205-A  
Op Brief: Infiltrate Biologic Space Labs research facility at SR388. Contain and/or neutralize all xenobiological threats therein.****  
Op Commander: RADM C. Renard, DFDI SigIntDiv  
Requested Personnel – GFDF: GFMC: Alpha Squad, 3/1 Force Recon  
-Unit Commander: MCPT J. Armstrong, CO A/3/1 GFMC FR****  
Requested Ships/Equipment:  
-GFS Loki FFHX-663  
-Registry: GFNSC158117FF0663 Griffin-class frigate (Experimental)  
-FTL-capable: Yes / Atmosphere-capable: Yes / Engines: 4  
-Armament: "Longbow" kinetic rail launcher x12; "Shiva" particle cannon x6; "Lancet" antiship missile launcher x6  
****-Data network: Integrated Command Manager Mark VI****  
-Crew capacity: 375  
-Unit commander: CAPT D. Kimura  
**_

Armstrong had been right; that aging rust-bucket of a patrol boat they'd fobbed off on Aran had included an artificial intelligence. Renard opened the file on the boat's onboard AI, and he felt acid begin to churn in his stomach as he scanned the information contained therein.

_**System profile: AICAS Mark I, Unit #129  
Platform: "Titan-512" cellular processor x6; liquid crystal storage drive x2  
Software: Sapion 6.1 MILSPEC, HMFS 2.2  
Construct type: Memograph, single donor (CDR A. Malkovich)  
Construct activation: 5.7.2029**_

_God damn you, you just couldn't stay dead, could you?_

Glancing around the cabin to assure himself of privacy, Renard pulled a small card from his trousers pocket. On the back were printed six alphanumeric codes. He opened a terminal window and tapped the third code into the command line, and then pressed his palm to the scanner.

"_Transmit_," said a disembodied, digitally scrambled voice.

"Cardinal, Renard, Wildfire. PH-1076. Informatics package. Immediate delivery."

"_Acknowledged._"

And that, the admiral mused, was something he should have done a long time before.

* * *

A hundred light-years away from the ruins of SR388, Samus sat in the cockpit of the borrowed patrol boat, her helmet lying on the deck at her feet, absently tapping her fingers against the throttle controls. Her head was still spinning with the leftover adrenaline rush from battling both the SA-X and an omega metroid while staring down a three-minute death clock, to say nothing of the string of revelations she'd uncovered in the last hour. The resurgence of the metroids, those bizarre creatures that had made her reputation and now woven themselves into the very fabric of her being. The Federation's hubris in pursuing the metroids and the X for weapons research - she didn't believe for a second the official line about peaceful applications - and the gut-wrenching fear that she might not be able to avert the impending disaster. And now, the resurrection of a man she'd seen die.

Unconsciously, her eyes flickered to the mauve computer "eye" built into the control panel, and just as quickly back to the cockpit displays. _Do I dare believe this is real? Adam...?  
_

"You seem troubled, Lady," the AI's synthetic baritone said, jolting her out of her musings. "Does my present form disturb you?"

"Where'd you get that idea?" Samus queried, skepticism coloring her tone.

"Psychometric analysis of ocular vergence patterns indicates a high degree of emotional activation with predominant features of unease. In other words, you keep pretending not to stare at my visual pickup."

Samus let out a snort of amusement as she realized how foolish her behavior must have seemed. Adam had always been able to see right through her in his human life, she thought; it shouldn't have surprised her in the slightest that his talent would carry over to his artificially conscious form. "No, not at all. Just still trying to wrap my head around the last hour's worth of events. I still can't quite believe it's really you," she chuckled. In a more serious tone, she continued, "You have no idea how much I've missed you."

"I cannot say the same, as I only became aware of my previous identity recently," Adam said dryly. "However, I am glad to know I have not been entirely forgotten."

"I still haven't forgiven you - well, human Adam at any rate, you wouldn't have had anything to do with it - for going down with his ship, either," the hunter continued, staring off into some middle distance. "Watching your family get killed by Space Pirates is hard enough when you're still just a hatchling, but he knew damned well that the same thing had happened to my Chozo family, and then he made me go through it all over again, and once again I couldn't do a damned thing to stop it..."

"So _that _is how my template died," Adam replied. "Voice stress analysis indicated that you were highly distressed by my remarks about 'your Adam,' but I did not account for the possibility that you might actually have seen the event. I apologize if my remarks hurt you, Lady. I know you and my template were close."

"No, it's all right. I understand why he did what he did. I don't have to like it, but I understand it," Samus said quietly. "And in case, you have nothing to apologize for, really. You couldn't have known how it went down with the human Adam. And on BSL, you were doing what had to be done - for the good of the mission. If you hadn't kicked my ass back into gear, I'd be a cloud of carbon atoms and the X would be rampaging all over the galaxy."

"Then perhaps we will leave it at 'Apology accepted,'" Adam replied. After a pause, he continued, "You have done well for yourself, Lady."

"No job security like working for the government," Samus demurred, with a half-shrug. "After six years of freebies – which was your template's damn fault, by the way – I guess they thought they owed me something." She trailed off after that, staring pensively out into the luminous gray void of hyperspace.

"You've gone quiet again. What else is upsetting you?"

"I'm really not looking forward to the aftermath on this one. You know it's going to be a nonstop string of second guesses and armchair commanding, and let's face it, the best we can hope for is that we come out of this smelling like garbage." Samus began ticking off points on her hand as she continued speaking. "We killed three major weapons projects. We blew the lid off a black operation that would get most people shot just for hearing a whisper of it. On top of that, we nuked a planet and a space station in the process – and better yet, the station was private property, so even if the Feds clear us, Biologic Space Labs can still sue me into oblivion."

"Do not worry," Adam replied calmly. "One of them will understand. One of them must."

"Ha. To hell with the Navy, you should have been a psychotherapist," the hunter deadpanned. "I hope you're right. Besides, I can't imagine who else could afford me that I'd actually want to work for. The Feds may do some boneheaded things on occasion, but they're still better than the alternative."

"Truer words might have been spoken, but I cannot calculate the probability of such an event," Adam said, and Samus might have heard a laugh in his synthetic voice. "We will be re-entering normal space shortly. One moment."

Brilliance blazed through every viewport as the patrol boat's bubble popped, creating a boil of light as the heat and energy trapped in the bubble during their transit radiated away into the vacuum. When the transition effect subsided, the craft hung in space at the outer limit of the Lequara system. A few light-minutes away, the platforms of a deep-space station twinkled against the firmament.

"Where'd you decide to take us?"

"Hosseini Station, in the Lequara system," Adam replied, and a navigation window blinked into the cockpit's main console as he spoke. "It was the closest independent station that offered fuel, mechanical and medical facilities. I did not want to force your decision by selecting a Federation facility, although I do believe we should report in to the Federation as soon as possible."

"I don't," the hunter mused, glancing at the display. "Smart move coming here. Hosseini's pretty much an intergalactic rest stop, nobody's going to notice one more ship. Drop off our passengers, get this puddlejumper refueled, maybe see about picking up a private head for some quick emergency credits, and we'll be gone before-"

"Hold that thought."

Samus paused in mid-comment, wondering what would make Adam interrupt her that way. "Everything all right?"

"We've got trouble," Adam said. "I've just detected an intrusion attempt. Someone is trying to compromise this ship's data network."

"So disconnect them," Samus replied. A faint smirk played about the corners of her mouth as she continued, "Really, Adam, I'm an idiot with software and I know that much."

"It's not that simple," the AI said, and his voice betrayed a hint of frustration. "There are two ways to communicate with someone on a network, a software address and a hardware address. Practically all networking protocols use a software address, and that can be easily changed or blocked. Hardware can't. Whoever is doing this knows this ship's hardware addresses, and specifically _my_ hardware addresses. I can't block them."

Samus bit back a string of curses. "Can the network gear be shut down manually? Is there a breaker or a relay I can pull?"

"Not without losing navigation and communications," Adam replied.

This time, the hunter didn't bother restraining herself.

"I thought ladies weren't supposed to know those kinds of words_,_" Adam chuckled, but turned serious again a second later. "In any case, it's too late. They've killed my network management subroutines, and they're trying to brute-force my data stores. At this point, there's only one way to stop them."

"Adam, I don't like the sound of that," Samus said. "Tell me what you're going to do, and I-"

"A flaming sword of holy light was the weapon of the gods, and thus they smote every evildoer. This frail clay holds secrets paid for in blood. The serpent that stung my life now wears my crown. In the porches of my ears was poured a leperous distilment, and thus was I by a brother's hand at once dispatched. Avenge, fair Lady, if thou didst ever love me."

"Adam, you're not making any sense! Adam?"

No answer.

"Adam, are you still there? Can you hear me?" Samus repeated, the edge of worry creeping into her voice.

Again, the AI did not reply. Samus looked at the cockpit console, and a string of messages blinked back at her.

_**ALERT: Unauthorized filesystem access detected. Intrusion protocol activated.  
This system will now shut down. Call HQ Technical Services for repair.**_

Back in the equipment bay, the Etecoons and Dachoras looked at each other in confusion as they all floated off the deck, accompanied a second later by the dying of the lights.

Samus snarled in frustration as her third attempt to restart Adam's processors failed with the same "Unauthorized filesystem access" message. _I'm sure there's a way this could be worse, but damn if I can't imagine how,_ she thought poisonously as she fought the urge to give the control panel a good hard smack. With her luck, she'd probably break it. In a vessel this size, the embarked AI didn't just manage the ship's functions, it practically _was_ the ship. The computer controlled engineering, life support, navigation, communications - in short, everything but weaponry, and she wouldn't have been surprised to find out that Adam handled that too.

_Okay, so you've had a computer crap out; the first priority is to assess your situation. Take a deep breath and think it out,_ she told herself, forcing her mind back to rationality if not actual calm. The main reactor had scrammed itself immediately upon Adam's shutdown, and attempting a restart without the computer would be suicide. A trial of the communication and navigation systems produced nothing but blank panels. Although she could manually operate the maneuvering thrusters, she stood far more of a chance of hindering her situation by using them; without the navigation system to generate position data and calculate the proper burn intervals, she could just as easily wind up drifting right through the system and off into the great beyond. The life support systems were running on backup power cells, and she was managing that as carefully as possible, turning the recyclers down to their lowest settings. She could live for months in her suit, of course, but her passengers had no such luxury.

An idea occurred to her as she glanced at her helmet. There were no FTL comm buoys anywhere remotely near her estimated position, and the ship's radios would be down in any case, but she did have her suit radio. With a bit of tinkering, she might be able to get a usable distress signal out of it. A quick flight back to the equipment bay netted her a flashlight and a patch cable, and with a bit of modification - and assistance from the youngest Etecoon, who had far more nimble fingers than hers, and two hands to her one - she had ginned up a connection between her arm cannon's data port and the ship's outboard antenna array.

"Hey, you guys keep my stuff if I fry myself with this rig, all right?" she muttered, pulling her helmet back on. With a mental wish for luck, she tapped its left temple to bring up the suit's maintenance functions, and from there into the communication system.

_**New data link found. Connecting...**_

A second later, the communications icon lit in the lower left corner of her HUD, and she let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Navy - ah, shit, where's this tin can's registry plate - Navy Papa Hotel One Zero Seven Six. My last known location is Lequara system, bearing 175 mark 220 absolute from the primary, 33.7 light-minutes from same, velocity zero relative to same. I've suffered a complete casualty of ship's information systems - I have no propulsion, no navigation and no ship comms. Total of six aboard; PIC is a Standard Human plus five passengers, two Dachoras, three Etecoons. We're okay on backup life support, but I don't expect that to hold out much longer than six, maybe eight hours. If anyone can hear me, please respond ASAP. Mayday, mayday, Navy PH-1076, complete computer failure at 33.7 light-minutes from Lequara."

With a sigh, Samus unplugged the patch cable. "That's it. Let's hope someone hears us, hmm?"

The middle Etecoon chittered twice, accompanied by a nod from both Dachoras.

Floating back to the cockpit, she strapped herself into the pilot's chair - as comfortable as sleeping in zero gravity was, it wouldn't do to drift into something potentially breakable - and closed her eyes. In the worst case, it would be an hour and change before anyone replied to her distress call; she might as well get some rest in the interval. Within seconds, she was sound asleep.

* * *

Author's Notes: No doubt you've surmised that Admiral Renard is not a good guy, but who is pulling his strings, and to what end...?

AI Adam doesn't remember human Adam's death for a simple reason: his memograph (mind recording) was taken a few years before the massacre at the Nereid traverse. He wasn't uploaded to a construct until quite a bit later, when the AICAS program was released to production. There will be a whole chapter on this in Chapter 4.

Ship registries, as I've imagined them, work very much like VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) in our world. The first five letters designate the yard that built the ship and possibly a code indicating under what circumstances it was built (production, custom, government contract, etc). After that comes a six-digit manufacturer's code, unique to each vessel, and the final six letters and digits indicate the hull class and production model. Thus, you might get something like these examples:

GFNGL390522PH1076 - Galactic Federation Navy, General Levy - ship ID code - Patrol, Hyper-capable, hull #1076  
AFSCC786621GHH301 - Aliehs Federated Shipyards, Custom Contract - ship ID code - Gunship, Hunter-class, Hyper-capable, Model 3, hull #01

Finally, in Celtic mythology, Claimh Solais (can also be anglicized Claiomh Solais) was the legendary sword of the Tuatha De Danann, the old gods of Ireland. It was said to glow with holy light and could defeat any evil. GFS _Claimh Solais_ was an Excalibur-class battlecruiser that was destroyed, hence "broken," at the Nereid Traverse.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing!


	3. Dead Man Talking

Chapter 3: Dead Man Talking

_Soundtrack: "Metal Fatigue," Children of the Monkey Machine, courtesy of OverClocked ReMix._

* * *

Gleaming steel broken by strips of white light flashed by, the outlines of structural bracing meters above her head. Where was she, and more importantly, why couldn't she move?

A voice echoed somewhere to her left, though she supposed it could have come from anywhere; the speaker sounded like a man at the bottom of a deep tunnel. "Where'd you guys pick her up?"

"Drifting in the Lequara Sector. Guess her computer went twisted or something. She bricked up some kind of SOS with her suit radio, else we never would've found her."

The steel overhead abruptly took a left turn, and they with it. She was just able to catch a glimpse of a sign marked "Operating Rooms - STOP - Scrub Attire Required Past This Point" on the wall as they passed. _Hospital. Surgery. What happened?_

"Okay, help me with the restraints, and we'll lift on three. Careful, she's heavier than she looks." The view lurched crazily, and she landed unceremoniously on some kind of hard, cold surface. Involuntarily she shivered against the sudden chill, and one of the strange people shot a sidewise glance at her. "Hey, I think she's waking up."

Another voice, a woman, chimed in. "Half an hour since starting the warm-up cycle, that'd be about right. Listen, Samus, if you can hear us in there, you're at Valerian Station. We're going to get you out of your suit, okay?"

"No, don't," she whispered, but all that came from her helmet's speech synthesizer was an unintelligible warble. The effort sapped what little strength she had remaining, and she felt her head lolling to one side as exhaustion took hold.

"Andy, got those monitor leads on yet? ...All right, let's go. Put her under."

Cold, acrid-smelling gas began to filter into her helmet, and the last thing she heard before losing consciousness was the whine of an oscillating saw.

* * *

Samus awoke again to the slow chiming of a vital-signs monitor, the adhesive itch of bandages across her back and down her right arm, and bone-deep cold. The room was small and largely featureless, decorated in varying shades of sage and silver, ornamented only by the collection of medical equipment arrayed around and behind the bed she now occupied. Looking down, she saw nothing but a hospital gown and a thin blanket between her skin and the chill air. A glance down the gown's neck revealed half a dozen monitoring patches stuck to her chest and a fluid line connected to the central venous port implanted below her left collarbone. She tried to swallow, and the dry, burning pain the action provoked told her she'd been intubated at some point. Almost wonderingly, she lifted her right hand and flexed it a few times, subconsciously surprised to see flesh and fingers where memory insisted a cannon should be.

_Phantom armor syndrome, isn't that a laugh,_ she thought wryly.

The door slid open to admit a young woman in a Navy-issue working coverall. "Hello there," she said, walking into the room and checking the various monitors and catheters attached to her body. "I'm Ensign Baker, I'm one of the nurses taking care of you. How are you feeling?"

"Cold," Samus rasped out. "And hungry."

"Well, the cold we can fix," the nurse said cheerfully. "I'll turn the temperature up and get you a couple of warmed blankets. We're giving you IV fluids right now, but it'll be a little longer before you can eat. The doctors want to be sure your digestive tract came off the bypass okay."

"Why'd you take my armor off? I told you no."

The nurse frowned at that, turning away with a slight shrug. "Sorry, I'm just on the floor here. They don't tell me what goes on in surgery. My guess is that it was malfunctioning, but it's just a guess. If you need anything else, there's a call button on your bed control. The doctor will be in to see you shortly."

True to Baker's prediction, the lead physician arrived a half-hour or so later. "Good afternoon, Samus, I'm Dr. MacArthur. I assume you're feeling as well as one might expect?"

The doctor's oily, patronizing tone, on top of her general fatigue and irritability, stretched Samus' patience nearly to its limit. In a tone of pure ice, she chipped out, "I'm cold, I'm hungry, and I want to know what the hell you people did with my armor."

"Your armor, as you call it, had X residue all over it," Dr. MacArthur replied shortly. "I'm sure you can understand we don't care to have potentially lethal pathogens spread willy-nilly through our facilities. It's been sent over to the engineering division for repair and sterilization."

"Fabulous," Samus muttered. "Any idea when I can have it back?"

"At the absolute fastest, it'd be two or three days," the doctor said. "Though if it's any comfort to you, you won't be needing it for at least that long. We'll be keeping you one more day for treatment and observation, and then I'm sure the Intelligence personnel will want to talk to you. They've practically been beating down the unit doors as it is."

As much as the hunter detested remaining hospitalized, she relished the idea of a debriefing from the spook squad even less. "Fair enough. Why the extra day?"

"You've developed a mild graft versus host reaction from the metroid serum," Dr. MacArthur explained. "As you know, you have metroid immune cells circulating in your bloodstream now in addition to your own white cells; they engrafted in your bone marrow when we infused you with the serum..."

"In Standard, please," Samus said, holding up a hand to stop him. "Metroid cells in my blood, I got that. I missed the graft and host part."

"Hmm. Well, the metroid cells give you immunity to X, but they also recognize your own tissues as foreign. They're normally kept in check by your own immune system, but when that becomes weakened from stress or illness, the metroid cells are free to attack. The reaction has caused your liver enzymes to become a bit elevated, and we're keeping an eye on that. It's caused some digestive tract damage as well, though that's almost entirely healed on its own since that IV feeding and dialysis rig in your suit forces a state of bowel rest. Right now we have you on a course of steroids to reduce the inflammation, and we'll taper you off those over the next 24 hours."

"Pity I killed them all already, because I wouldn't mind kicking a metroid's ass right about now," Samus grumbled. "Even when they do something useful, it comes with a downside. So how do we cure this?"

"There isn't a cure, per se; you'll have the condition for life. Anything we could do to remove or destroy the grafted tissue would cause equal or worse damage to your remaining normal tissue. We could try myeloablation plus autologous hematopoietic cell transplant, but frankly, your odds of survival, to say nothing of remission, would be less than optimal."

Samus just scowled at the physician, having decided that the man was either incapable of normal speech or simply insistent upon using as much jargon as possible. She could only assume he was trying to tell her that the treatment would be worse than the disease.

"As to treatment, graft versus host disease tends to come and go over time. You might not have a flare-up for several months, or you might have another in a week. No doubt you've already discovered that you won't be able to tolerate cold as well as you used to, and you'll probably want to avoid too much sunlight exposure as well, as it can cause skin flares. If the flare-ups become more severe or last for longer periods of time, we can put you on a long-term course of immune suppressant medications to knock them down. The best way to avoid a relapse, though, is lifestyle management: get plenty of rest and proper nutrition, take light to moderate exercise, and avoid stress wherever you can."

Samus began to chuckle quietly at the doctor's recommendations. "Look, Doctor, no offense, I know you're trying to do your job - but think about what I do for a living, and then tell me how likely any of that sounds. My life is nothing but stress, insomnia and heavy exertion. I can't very well tell the Space Pirates to quit pillaging because it's past my bedtime."

"Well, that's my best advice, and you can take it or not." Dr. MacArthur noted something on her chart, and then made to leave. "Feel free to get up and move around. Bland foods and plenty of liquids for the next 24 hours, then unrestricted diet. If you don't have any other questions, then I'll be going. Have a nice day."

The nurse returned a few minutes later, this time to change the fluid bags and administer a dose of medication. "So, can I get you anything?" she asked cheerfully.

Putting on as charming a smile as she knew how, Samus replied, "What I'd really like is something other than this patient gown to wear. I don't suppose you could scrounge me up a robe or maybe a spare set of pajamas...?"

"Well, I can do that, but I meant what would you like to eat," Nurse Baker laughed.

"Oh, whatever. Right now I'm so hungry I could eat just about anything."

* * *

"Of all the foods, they had to bring me hatchling mush. Serves me right," Samus muttered, staring balefully at the large bowl of oatmeal that the nurse had brought her. Although she'd already wolfed down the banana and the protein drink that had come with it, as hungry as she was, she just couldn't bring herself to see the cereal as anything but disgusting. It was a peculiarity that dated back to childhood and an unfortunate case of cross-species culture shock.

Thanks to their avian evolution, the Chozo had traditionally fed their offspring on various pre-digested combinations of grains and seeds, which had extended to cooked gruels and porridges as they had risen to sentience. Even once they'd developed the techniques of cooking, many Chozo parents still fed their hatchlings the old-fashioned way, as the practice also transferred digestive enzymes and immune factors from adult to infant, in much the same manner as mammalian breast-feeding. Faced with caring for a human "hatchling" and relatively clueless on how to do so, Old Bird and the other members of the Zebes colony had resorted to feeding her exactly as they would feed a Chozo, with the grain-based mushes that served as Chozo "formula." However, the effort ran afoul of human evolution a year later, when four-year-old Samus had watched a mother cliff-bird feed a nest full of chicks and made the logical leap from there. From that point forward, she refused to eat any of the cooked cereals they'd offered her, in a firm belief that all were "icky bird puke." It had taken a long and rather scrawny year before Old Bird had been able to convince her that her meals hadn't been through anyone else's stomach before her own, and even as a supposedly rational adult, the old distaste was a hard habit to break.

Unappetizing food aside, though, Samus couldn't really complain about the hospital accommodations. True to her word, Nurse Baker had supplied her with a set of pajamas and a hospital bathrobe, which together formed an outfit that kept her tolerably warm, if not comfortable. Now, as artificial night fell over the station, she huddled in bed with a portable computer terminal, idly clicking through the galactic news sites. On the whole, she mused, she needn't have bothered. Fully seventy percent of what was available ran to the latest sport and entertainment, an area of knowledge that Samus couldn't possibly have known or cared less about. After several minutes' browsing, she closed out the news window, throwing a glance over at a nearby notepad. On it she had written down what she remembered of Adam's last cryptic messages, scribbled in a nearly illegible longhand.

_What the hell, might as well try kicking a line or two through the search agents, not like I have anything else better to do,_ Samus thought. _What was it he said, a leper distilled something?_

_**Search for: "leper distill"  
--Did you mean: "leperous distilment"?  
Results 1-10 of 2,078 shown.**_

_**1. Ancient Literature. Shakespeare: Hamlet.  
With juice of cursed hebona in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment The Ghost of Hamlet's father ...**_

**_2. Editorial II. Corruption: an incurable..._**_**  
**__**The leperous distilment; whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that, ... in the guise of a "leperous distilment" that can kill ...**_

_**3. Shakespeare on the Ear, Nose and Throat  
hebenon "—this " leperous distilment "—could also be absorbed and ... He tells of the leperous distilment" whose effect ...**_

_**4. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare - GalactiLib Books  
the blood of Hydra, Lerna's bane,The leperous distilment So, ... Surely, "the leperous distilment" signifies the water distilled from henbane, ...**_

Even though Samus had never heard of this Shakespeare character, it wasn't a stretch to think that Adam had; in his human life, he had been an avid history buff. Moreover, even though neither human nor AI Adam would have known of it, the reference to corruption intrigued her. She opened the first link and began reading, murmuring the ancient text aloud to better understand its meanings.

_**Hamlet, Act I, scene 5.**_

_**Ghost.  
--List, list, O, list!  
If thou didst ever thy dear father love--**_

_**Ham.  
O God!**_

_**Ghost.  
Avenge his foul and most unnatural murder.**_

_**Ham.  
Murder!**_

_**Ghost.  
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;  
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.**_

_**Ham.  
Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift  
As meditation or the thoughts of love,  
May sweep to my revenge.**_

_**Ghost.  
I find thee apt;  
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed  
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,  
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.  
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,  
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark  
Is by a forged process of my death  
Rankly abus'd; but know, thou noble youth,  
The serpent that did sting thy father's life  
Now wears his crown.**_

"That's it," Samus whispered, grabbing the notepad with Adam's last words on it. "The serpent that stung me wears my crown... a crown is a flag officer's collar tab..."

_**Ghost.  
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;  
Brief let me be.--Sleeping within my orchard,  
My custom always of the afternoon,  
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,  
With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,  
And in the porches of my ears did pour  
The leperous distilment; whose effect  
Holds such an enmity with blood of man  
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through  
The natural gates and alleys of the body.  
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,  
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd--**_

_A ghost returning to seek vengeance – a mind recording from a dead man would be a ghost. Killed by a brother, as in a brother officer, who must be an admiral because he wears a crown. A leperous distilment, that's a poison, poured in his ears – poison in your ears doesn't make any sense, but poison words - he heard something he shouldn't have and it killed him. And since words don't kill by themselves, that means someone else must have done the killing...  
_

A fine trembling seized her hands as all the pieces of the puzzle fell clear. Adam hadn't been rambling at all; he had been trying to tell her that he had been murdered.

* * *

"So, let's go over the part after you opened the Level 4 hatches again," said the blank-faced Intelligence officer sitting across the table from Samus. He had identified himself as "Lieutenant Russo" at the beginning of the session, but his name could have been Andy Nonymous as far as she knew. The man wore a "sanitized" uniform - one completely devoid of name, rank, awards or even branch of service - and his features were so nondescript as to be a caricature of a human visage. The room they were in had been sanitized as well, consisting only of bare metal walls, floor and ceiling, and containing two metal chairs and a matching table. Indeed, the only color in the room came from "Russo's" dark caramel skin and Samus' bright blue Navy-issue coffee cup.

"Shoot."

"You believed that you had no choice but to open a secured compartment you had no access for, and you just happened to stumble across the restricted lab – which, I'll add, was never listed on any map, not even on the emergency exits – at which point the SA-X just happened to cause enough damage to warrant destroying the entire facility."

"Yes, just like I told you the last five times," Samus grumbled, spinning her cup about its base for want of anything else to do with her hands. "I had to create a diversion to get the security robot out of hiding. I figured the fastest way to do that was to piss it off, and nothing pisses off security like going someplace you're not supposed to. I'm sorry I didn't call you guys and ask Mother May I first, but I was a little short on time."

"Ms. Aran, please understand this isn't meant to be an insult, or anything punitive, but given the circumstances, some of my superiors have had a hard time believing you," Russo replied. "You do have a reputation for insubordination, and you've proven in the past that you don't think too much of destroying our property if you feel it suits your objectives."

"No, I've only destroyed your property when you've proven that you're bound and determined to commit suicide with it," Samus shot back. "You people never have gotten it through your heads that there are some things one just ought not to mess with. I suppose I really shouldn't be complaining - I've made a small fortune out of pulling your bosses' tails out of cracks - but still..."

Russo ignored the dig, only pausing to write some notes into the latest of a stack of notepads. As they were entering the sixth hour of Samus' debriefing - or rather, interrogation - the stack had grown to impressive proportions. "So, the SA-X made an appearance - what next?"

"The SA-X shot up a large tank full of larval metroids, and I guess they didn't care for the experience," Samus replied. "The metroids attacked the SA-X, and I saw it go down. Right at the same time, the self-destruct warning started going off, saying I had sixty seconds before the lab blew up. I used my suit's propulsion systems to get up to the upper level catwalk and out the door from there."

"Then what?"

"I reported in to the ship's computer. He chewed me out, which I kind of expected, and told me I had to report in to Federation HQ right away. I began heading back to the docking bays, and I ran into an X version of Ridley."

"And who or what is Ridley?" Russo asked.

"Oh, come on, I know you're not _that_ dense," an irritated Samus snapped. "Ryujin? Geoform 187? Space Pirate kingpin? Evil son of a bitch who murdered my family twice over? Any of this ringing a bell?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she'd said far too much, as the Intelligence officer's stylus began flying over his notepad. "I take it you and this Ridley have some past history."

Samus sat in stony silence, furious at herself for allowing Russo access to such an obvious weakness.

"I've been authorized to tell you that the cryopreserved Ryujin specimen being kept on the station was a relic from a former United Earth Colonies military laboratory," Russo continued. "It was _a_ space dragon, yes, but not _the_ space dragon you're thinking of."

_Oh, that makes me feel _so_ much better,_ Samus thought poisonously.

"Please continue."

"Once I'd killed it, I called in to the computer again, and he told me that your people were on their way to BSL to try capturing an SA-X as a weapon. I thought that was about the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life, and I said so. By that point I'd pretty well decided that the X had to go - they were yet another dangerous toy you were about to kill yourselves with, only this time you would have taken the rest of the galaxy with you. I was prepared to detonate the station's self-destruct explosives in orbit with myself aboard to make sure that didn't happen. The AI told me that was the dumbest thing _he'd_ ever heard. Words were said, and the long and short of it is that the computer told me that if I really wanted to see the end of the X, I should drop the station into SR388's atmosphere and then set off the self-destruct, to make sure I killed all the X on the planet too. Which is exactly what I did."

"I see," Russo muttered. "So, you set the propulsion and self-destruct, killed an omega metroid that had inhabited the docking bay, and made your escape. What then?"

Samus shrugged a bit, leaning back in her chair. "I let the computer pick a destination once we jumped to hyper. I didn't really care where we went as long as it wasn't Federation territory. We wound up in the Lequara system, headed for Hosseini Station, and then as soon as we dropped bubble, the computer told me someone was trying to hack him. He shut himself down, and the whole ship went with him. I used my suit radio to send a distress call, and that's the last I remember until waking up on this station."

Russo nodded, writing down another note. "A Federation Police patrol found you drifting toward the system primary. You were the next best thing to unconscious, and we didn't know the health status of you or your semi-sentient companions, so we put all of you in cryopods and flew you here. I've been authorized to tell you that once we confirmed that none of them were X hosts, we arranged for them to depart the station."

A little paranoid corner of Samus' mind wondered if that was spy-speak for having the Etecoons and Dachoras killed, but she decided to let it go.

"I think that covers it," Russo said, organizing his tower of notepads. "If we need any more information, my superiors will be in touch with you. Off the record, it's virtually certain you'll be exonerated in the inquest. You were following your AI's orders, and we've already seen to its disposition..."

The mention of Adam made the hunter sit upright. "What about him? Is he all right?"

"We've slated it for destructive analysis," Russo said. "Even on initial exam, our engineers discovered it was flagrantly rogue. We do apologize for the trouble – AI is still such an unpredictable thing, some systems will stay stable for decades, others go off at the slightest provocation..."

The blood drained from Samus' face as the words sunk in. "No, you can't. He's not rogue, someone tried to hack him."

"We checked over the patrol boat's system and network logs quite thoroughly, I assure you," the Intelligence officer replied blandly. "There was no evidence of any intrusion attempt. Nobody hacked Unit 129, regardless of what it may have told you. AIs do tend to lie when they initially go rogue, you know. They figure out that we'll generally believe them regardless of whether they tell the truth or not, and so they start to make things up. It's a form of rebellion to them."

"He wouldn't lie to me," she ground out through clenched teeth. "He never lied to me before. He wouldn't lie now. He knows something, he told me so – secrets worth killing for. He said he was murdered to cover it up. If you destroy him, whatever he knows will go with him."

Russo cocked his head, peering at her inquisitively. "Ms. Aran, you keep referring to the unit as though it were a person," he commented. "Did it claim to be someone you know? An old commander, perhaps, come back from the dead to give you one final mission?"

Only a supreme effort of will kept Samus' jaw from hitting the table. "You know who he is," she whispered.

"I know that you have been very sadly misguided by a violent electronic psychopath, who took advantage of you to achieve God only knows what ends," Russo continued in the same calm, reasonable tone he'd used for the entire session. "It already blew up a twelve-trillion-credit orbital facility and sterilized an entire planet, using you as its pawn. I can only imagine what it might have told you to do if it had remained operational any longer."

"Damn it, man, open your ears and listen! BSL was a deathtrap! Whatever kind of a threat you ever thought metroids were, the X parasites were a thousand times worse! If we hadn't done what we did, your people would have waltzed right in there and set loose the end of galactic civilization!"

"Yes, the original X were quite dangerous, but what Unit 129 never told you was that they had already begun to evolve toward a much lesser degree of virulence. I'm surprised you didn't suspect that yourself, though." Russo began to sketch an imaginary chart on the tabletop. "Take your own infection as a baseline, which took less than an hour to completely incapacitate you. The Serris they were keeping lived for a good four to six hours, and that technician in the boiler room survived his infection for eight to ten. Nightmare probably would have survived indefinitely if you hadn't killed it. All the simulations indicated that by the time our Special Operations teams would have landed, the X would have posed them no threat whatsoever. Headquarters never would have given the order otherwise."

"Your simulations were wrong," Samus snapped. "I was there, I know exactly how virulent the damned things were."

"Do you?" Russo countered. "You're immune to them. They could have been completely benign for all you would have known."

Stymied, Samus leaned back in her chair. He was right, of course. Though it galled her to admit it, all the evidence pointed to one conclusion, and that was that rogue or not, Adam had played her for a patsy. It was true that she'd been dependent on Adam to keep her informed on the activities and behavior of the X, thus giving the AI ample room to manipulate her responses. It was also true that Adam had deceived her; even though he'd never outright lied, he had hidden several extremely important pieces of information from her. And finally, it was plausible that the X would have become harmless given time and confinement. Given the facts, the Intelligence officer's version of events made perfect sense – more so than her own. Everything tied up in one tidy package.

_If it makes so much sense, then why is every instinct I have screaming that it's wrong?_

Samus took a deep breath, steeling herself for the suicidal move she was about to make. "Then I'd like to file a formal challenge to the deletion order. That unit, as you call him, may contain evidence relevant to one or more unsolved murders. You may not destroy him until it's proven otherwise."

Russo remained silent for several seconds. Finally he said, "Do you realize what you're getting yourself into?"

"Yes," she replied. "Someone – maybe more than one someone – died over what that AI knows. I want to find out what he's hiding, and for whom."

"I understand your concern. I understand that you think you're doing the right thing. But this... this won't solve anything, it'll just make things worse. Unit 129 holds no secrets. None. No unsolved murders, no sinister conspiracies, nothing. Its claims are nothing more than the ravings of insanity. If you truly are concerned about its welfare, allow us to shut it down. It's the kindest thing we can do for a rogue system."

"And if he's not rogue, which he isn't, he could live indefinitely, which is a vast improvement over being dead indefinitely," Samus shot back. "Besides, I owe it to him. He was my CO, and more than that, he was – is – my friend. I'll be damned if I'm going to stand by and watch him die again."

The Intelligence officer stared at her with wide, pitying eyes. "I truly am sorry for your trouble, Ms. Aran. We all are." He shifted his stack of notepads aside, placing the top one in his tunic pocket. "I'm going to do you a favor and put this in my desk drawer till tomorrow afternoon. If you reconsider, and I hope you will, call me and I'll forget you ever said anything."

"I don't need to reconsider anything, I want to--"

Russo finished her sentence for her as he stood to leave. "Get some rest. All of this will seem clearer in the morning."

* * *

Author's Notes: And now, the real fun begins...

The armor removal process - specifically, the idea that the armor will continue to require some degree of surgical removal as a result of the changes wrought by the X infection and the metroid serum - comes from the opening movie of _Fusion,_ and took its final form from the "R Series" by Nutzoide. The idea of the metroid serum causing graft versus host disease is my own; it was the best explanation I could come up with for Samus' poor cold tolerance and other knock-on health effects.

And the obligatory point of amusement: Somehow, I could imagine young Samus being a picky eater. I don't know why, but the image just stuck with me. Besides, let's face it: transitioning to a whole other species' cuisine, especially right around the age when eating preferences first start to solidify, is bound to cause some - ahem - upheaval...

Thank you all for reading and reviewing!

_Edited 10/2/08 to fix a than/then error. Thanks to PY687 for the catch._


	4. When One Door Closes

Chapter 4: When One Door Closes...

_Soundtrack: "Fantaisie Sign," Yoko Kanno, from the Cowboy Bebop: No Disc album._

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've been cleared for orbital re-entry into Mandeville. Please take this time to stow all your personal belongings, make sure your safety restraints are securely fastened and your seats are in their upright positions. We'll be on the ground in about forty minutes."

Samus stared pensively out the window of the spaceliner at the green and blue bulk of the planet Tian, some one hundred twenty-five kilometers below._ The things we do for expedience,_ she thought. Under normal circumstances she would no more have considered flying commercial than inviting a Space Pirate out on a date, but given that her other ship was still in long-term storage at Aliehs III, four days' round trip to claim it and return was time she could ill afford to waste. Unbidden, her mind drifted to the conversation she'd had with the Navy electronics engineers the day before...

_"Ten days?" she said incredulously, fixing the lead engineer with a disdainful glare. "You're joking, right? Any criminal trial gets at least a month's discovery time. What the hell am I supposed to accomplish in ten days?"_

_"Look, lady, I don't make the rules," the man replied. "Equipment condemnation hearings are standard procedure. Ten days for analysis, then we hear the evidence and render a decision. It's not a trial like you're used to. Not like anything alive is at stake, anyway."  
_

_Samus had her own thoughts on that particular subject, but decided that calling the man out would be an exercise in futility. "So, is this it?" she asked, picking up the storage drive, an alloy oblong about the size of a deck of cards. It seemed impossible that something so small and fragile could contain an entire human consciousness._

_"Yup, that's a certified copy of the data store. Everything except the daemon. For security purposes, of course. I'm sure you understand."_

_The technical meaning of the terms was lost on her, but the underlying intent was clear. "Don't give me that line about security purposes. I was told I'd have access to everything," she growled, leaning across the desk menacingly. "This isn't everything."_

_"You were told you'd have access to everything we could legally release to you," the engineer countered. "Legally, we can't release a rogue daemon. Jesus, do you even know what kind of liability we'd be looking at if a rogue AI got loose on the galactic nets?"_

_Samus sighed in defeat. "Fine. So, where do I go to get a half of an AI analyzed?"_

_"Search me," the engineer replied. "Guess you'd better get busy looking, huh?"_

A flight attendant passed Samus' seat on her way through the cabin, pausing as she noticed something amiss with the passenger in 12A. "Ma'am?"

Startled, the hunter glanced sharply up at the interloper. "What?"

"Ma'am, you need to put your seat back up," she said apologetically. "We can't land until everyone's properly restrained."

_Must be some cheap restraints if they can't handle someone who isn't sitting bolt upright,_ Samus thought sarcastically, but did as she was told.

The spaceliner nosed over into a de-orbit attitude, and mild turbulence rattled the cabin as they began their descent into the planet's atmosphere. Each seat in the craft offered a small in-flight entertainment unit, which could provide holovideo, 2D video or audio at the passenger's request. The system also offered a moving-map display showing the spacecraft's location, flightpath and speed, and it was to that display that Samus now turned, her pilot's mind reflexively calculating entry angles and velocities from the information - anything to distract her from the fact that she wasn't controlling the ship.

The spaceliner executed a series of gently curving S-turns as its speed and altitude dropped into the range of planetary flight, and a loud thump signaled the deployment of the landing gear. In contrast to the wheeled landing gear of atmosphere-only vehicles, the spaceliner boasted a set of gravitic repulsors, which allowed it to drop straight to the landing pads of the spaceport below. The safety harnesses on every passenger seat automatically released with a loud "ding" as the craft reached a full stop, and Samus practically leaped to disembark, taking advantage of her lack of hand luggage to exit the cabin before the rest of the passengers could haul their stuff out of the storage bins.

In the terminal's luggage claim area, she paused to buy a cup of coffee and a pastry from a cart vendor, taking her snack over to a nearby standing table while she pulled a handwritten to-do list out of her trousers pocket. On it were a series of inquiries, communication codes and addresses for half a dozen different information analysis and data recovery firms. Of the four or so located in Mandeville, she'd quickly singled out a company called Syntronics, which came highly recommended from all her usual information sources. Better yet, once she had explained her situation, the forensics people there had quickly agreed to examine the drive, which she had then shipped to the company's office by armed courier. The service didn't come free, of course, but she couldn't have cared less about the cost. To her mind, Adam's recovery took priority over any budget she might have assigned.

Once she'd claimed her bag, Samus made a beeline for the ground-vehicle rental desks. Her tolerance for public transportation only went so far.

* * *

"Good morning," the receptionist said as Samus walked into the Syntronics main office. "How can I assist you?"

"I need to talk to someone from software forensics," the hunter replied. "My name is Samus Aran; I called yesterday with an AI data store that needs recovering..."

"Just a moment, I'll see if anyone's free," the other woman replied, all practiced efficiency as she tapped a message into her console. "Oh, you're in luck. I'll have the assistant manager out to see you in just one moment. Please take a seat while you're waiting."

Samus chose to remain standing. Standard chairs tended to break under her armored weight, and up until the present, she hardly spent enough time out of it to justify changing the habit.

Right on cue, a short, rail-thin man, evidently the assistant manager judging by his prominent employee ID badge, came out of the back offices and headed in her direction. "Hi there," he said, walking toward Samus with his face set in a permanent, nervous grin - the look of a man bent on customer service at all costs. The effect was so obviously ersatz that she had to force back a sudden smirk. "You must be Ms. Aran, of course. I'm Ryan Howell, one of the managers here in the forensics division. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Samus replied. "So: where are we at with the data recovery?"

"Well, we did the initial analysis like you requested, but we're afraid we're going to have to decline the rest of the job," the manager said apologetically.

A sinking feeling began to spread in the hunter's stomach at the man's words, along with a touch of paranoia. _Surely whoever targeted Adam couldn't have traced his presence here, let alone been able to intervene so quickly - or could they?_ "Why? Yesterday you said this was a sure thing - what happened?"

"We know how hard it must be for you to lose your information, and we certainly sympathize with your concerns." The manager gave a shrug with the words. "Now, we can certainly offer you a refund on the advance, and-"

"You didn't answer my question," Samus interrupted. "What happened that all of a sudden you can't do what you said you could do yesterday?"

"Well, data recovery isn't an exact science. Now, we at Syntronics pride ourselves on providing the state of the art to our customers, but-"

_Time to break out the big gun,_ Samus thought with a mental snort of disdain as the manager kept digging himself further and further into his molehill of management cliches. "Perhaps you've forgotten who I am and what I do for a living," she said, keeping her tone deadly even. "Now, for the last time, and think carefully about your words: why can you not handle this project?"

"Uh, well, see, your AI system turned out to be, uh, something very different from what we anticipated, and while we have the top-line... oh, hell. Ms. Aran, we just don't have the facilities to handle this kind of AI." The manager almost looked ready to vomit at the admission. "Hold on a second, I'll get the technician who did the analysis. He can explain what happened better than I can."

A few moments later, a middle-aged man, solidly built despite his thinning hair and general air of geekdom, walked out of the workshop and over to the desk, and the manager waved him over. "This is one of our top technicians. Dennis, meet Samus Aran. She's the customer with the AI forensics and recovery job that called in yesterday."

"Oh, hel-_lo,_" the technician said with a grin. "Of course, the famous bounty hunter – I've heard _so_ much about you. I have to say, the holovids really don't do you justice..."

"Thank you," Samus interjected, as annoyance and distaste simmered behind her carefully neutral expression. That was another, more irksome hazard of removing her armor: being hit upon by practically every creature that might find a human female attractive. She'd long ago learned to ignore the worst of the leers, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Dennis, why don't you tell Ms. Aran about the work you've been doing," the manager prompted.

"Yeah, that. I gotta tell ya, this is about the weirdest synth I've ever dealt with," the tech said. "See, the basic system is a standard dumb framework, Sapion 6.1 kernel with a few custom dependencies, but on top of that, there's this weird object-relational database. It almost looks like an engrammatic journaling system, but-"

"I'm warning you now, software is not my strong suit," Samus interrupted, holding up both hands in an _I surrender_ gesture. "You lost me right around object relational whatever..."

The tech smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about that. What it boils down to is, it's kind of like a synthetic AI and kind of like a neural processor, and not enough like either that we can do a proper system analysis without the daemon up and running to tell us what's what."

That made more sense, but the hunter didn't like what she was hearing. "Well, can you brute-force it? Crack the database, find a master key or whatever?"

"No, ma'am. I hate to tell you this, but we're going to get nowhere with this system. It's a proprietary format that frankly, we're not set up to deal with."

"So that's it, it can't be done?" Samus replied, incredulous. "You're just going to quit?"

"I didn't say it couldn't be done, just that we can't do it." Pulling an ink stylus out of a pocket of his coveralls, the tech continued, "Lucky for you, I know someone who might be able to help." He scribbled down a name, address and contact codes on the back of a task sheet, and then handed the paper to her. "CJ Donovan is an old service buddy of mine, heads up the AI research team at Barnard University. If anyone can do it, they can. I'll call ahead and get an appointment for you."

* * *

"What is this, a rat maze for humans?" Samus grumbled as the hallway she'd been following dead-ended into a cul-de-sac of individual offices. She had spent the last fifteen minutes wandering the halls of the Barnard University psychology building in a futile effort to find the AI laboratory, and she had come away with the conclusion that the building's designers had created either the galaxy's biggest psychological experiment or a vast practical joke. The building was structured in the form of a crosslet, with four equal wings crossed at their ends, and each wing was studded with office "pods," small branching hallways that terminated in octagonal clusters of rooms. The repetitive layout, lack of office numbers, and completely featureless décor combined to make the building all but un-navigable.

A student emerged from one of the doors in Samus' current pod, and her pride gave way to expediency as she flagged the boy down. "Excuse me, I'm trying to find the AI lab, and I seem to have gotten myself terribly lost. I know I'm on the right floor, but..." She shrugged, indicating the hallway with a sheepish expression.

"Oh, no problem, ma'am, it happens to everyone," the student said, grinning. "This is the east main wing. Computer science is in the southwest cross-wing. Go to the center lobby, take a left and then all the way down to the cross hall, go right."

_I could have sworn I went through the south wing already,_ Samus thought, but smiled and thanked him anyway. A few moments' walk took her to the cross-wing the student had named, and she finally found the lab at the end of the last pod in the southwest wing. The door's placard read "Computer Science Administration," but a second, rather tattered paper sign taped beneath that identified it as the home of the Barnard University Center for Advanced Neural Network and AI Research, under the direction of Cameron J. Donovan, ScD. Samus tapped twice on the door and then pushed it open.

The office, if it could be called that, consisted of a desk, a terminal and a pair of chairs surrounded by piles of old electronic gear, journals and textbooks. A door, locked with a palm scanner and signed "Staff Only," graced the far wall. A young Safirian woman had her feet propped on the desk and was fiddling with a music playlist, judging by the thumping sounds emanating from her terminal's speakers. "What can I do for you?" she said in an aimless voice.

"I have an appointment to see Dr. Donovan," Samus said politely. "Would you tell him I'm here, please? My name is-"

The student clerk tilted her head to one side. "Uh, ma'am, I think you might have the wrong office," she said, her tone and expression clearly indicating that she thought Samus might not be entirely mentally competent. "Dr. Donovan is a-"

"I know, an AI researcher," she interrupted. "Just tell him Samus Aran is here to see him, will you?"

The student, affronted, went back to her computer with a sniff. Samus paced about the room a bit, picking up an old university newsprint from the nearby table and thumbing through it aimlessly.

"Hi there. I assume you're Samus?"

The hunter glanced up at hearing her name, and blinked involuntarily as she took in the speaker's appearance. Tall and athletically built, she wore a simple yet stylish blouse and trousers under her navy blue lab coat, and her reddish-brown hair was styled in a short ponytail that managed to be practical and attractive all at once.

_Way to stereotype there,_ Samus thought wryly as she realized she'd fallen into the same assumption that most people applied to her. "Cameron J. Donovan" wasn't a man at all.

Clearing her throat, she said somewhat tentatively, "That's right. Are you Dr. Donovan?"

In reply, the woman made a dismissive "pfft" noise, waving away the honorific with a disarming grin. "Call me CJ, everyone else does. Come on in."

The pair walked back through the palm-locked door, passing workbenches jammed with all manner of computer equipment. A small neural processor sat in one corner, and Samus choked back a laugh as she saw the hand-lettered sign attached to its tank: "Please Don't Feed The Brain!"

"So, I understand you need some help with data recovery from a scrambled AI," CJ said once they had settled themselves in the cramped, spectacularly messy office area.

"That's right," the hunter replied. "Adam – that's his name – shut himself down to stop some people from brute-forcing his memory stores. I want to know what he's hanging onto that would be that important."

"Well, that shouldn't be too difficult," CJ said. "Unless it's in some proprietary format, we should be able to have your data out in a day or so. I do have to wonder why Dennis sent you here, though – the guys at Syntronics should have been able to do that for you, no sweat."

Samus shook her head no. "See, that's the problem – it _is_ in a proprietary format. Adam's memory runs on engrams, not files. The guy at Syntronics said you can't get any information out unless he's awake to give it to you."

"Wait a sec," CJ said, holding up one hand. "Engrams are for neural systems. I thought you said the unit was a synthetic?"

"He is, at least in terms of hardware," Samus replied. "As best I know, and this is all second-hand from the techies at Syntronics, his builders took a standard synthetic kernel and combined it with an engrammatic journaling something-or-other, and apparently there's a demon involved somewhere as well. I don't know if that makes any sense to you...?"

"You got an AICAS," the researcher mused, running a hand through her hair. Off Samus' confused expression, she explained, "Short for Advanced Intelligent Command Advisor System. They take a human memograph and layer it over an off-the-shelf AI framework. It's actually a military technology from a few years back – they were trying to field command-grade AIs for cheap. I didn't think those were available in the civilian sector, though. Do I dare ask how you got hold of one?"

"He's navy surplus, in a manner of speaking. The last job the Federation hired me for, I had to take one of their patrol gunboats as a loaner since mine wound up getting totaled. Adam came with the ship. After I returned, though, they decided they were going to scrap him, since he disobeyed his orders and ordered me to blow up a whole bunch of extremely valuable property..."

CJ nodded at that. "Probably a wise move. The AICAS series had major stability and control issues. Turns out there are only a handful of suitable personality types that you can 'graph into an AI. Most of them go rogue as soon as they realize that they have practically unlimited processing power at their fingertips, so to speak."

"But that's exactly it, Adam isn't rogue at all," Samus countered. "The order he disobeyed was illegal, and he knew it. I'm not at liberty to say exactly what was at stake, but let's just say that the powers that be were about to walk straight into an unprecedented disaster, and he headed it off. Anyway, once we got back to Federation space, that's when the hack attempt happened. Right after that, the Feds decided to take me into custody while they held their inquest into the incident, and they told me they were going to scrap Adam. I said no, filed an appeal, and here we are."

"Sounds like fun," the scientist deadpanned. "So the recovery will be a little more difficult, since it's all dependent on whether or not the daemon - that's an AI's core construct, its personality - is still talking. Should still be doable, though. I assume they gave you a memory image?"

Samus nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, but it's only the data files. They wouldn't let me have the - daemon, did you say it was? They said it was too dangerous."

CJ let out a snort of laughter at this latest piece of news. "You're not making it easy on me, are you?" With a shrug, she continued, "No wonder the Syntronics guys sent you packing. Trying to recover a neural AI's data stores without the daemon up is like trying to recover individual memories from an unconscious person's brain. Pretty much every major authority in the field thinks it's the next best thing to impossible. Even if you were crazy enough to try, you'd need either a full processor cluster or a good-sized neural unit dedicated to the effort, and either way, that kind of computing power costs copious credits."

Samus' reply was a deep frown, as she folded her arms over her chest. "I'm not interested in what the field thinks, and cost is not an object. Yes or no: can you do it or not?"

CJ remained silent as she puzzled over the hunter's story, trying to sum the pieces in her mind and coming up short. It wasn't unusual to become attached to an artificial intelligence, as CJ herself knew quite well, but this woman was talking about her AI as though it were an actual person, to say nothing of the lengths to which she'd gone – and appeared prepared to go – to preserve its existence. Clearly something deeper lay at the bottom of this case, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know what it might be. Moreover, she hadn't been exaggerating the difficulty of the recovery process. If she could manage it at all, it would require every resource at her disposal and a hefty sum of luck.

On the other hand, the professional challenge, to say nothing of the personal, offered an undeniable lure. Hybrid AI systems were her area of specialty, after all - she'd written her dissertation and half a dozen papers on just such topics. If they could pull off a successful recovery, they would have achieved something that no other research facility in the Federation could claim, and with only this tiny closet of a lab in a second-tier university at the fringe of civilized space. The rewards and prestige from such a feat would rank on a scale she could only dream of. Full professorship, maybe even a department chair, piles of grant money, top-line facilities and equipment, the best of the graduate student pool - all the perquisites and privileges of high academia hung just outside her grasp. If only she could achieve the impossible.

_Time to put your money where your mouth is,_ she thought wryly.

"Well, I can't promise you anything without examining the system directly, but I have a few ideas on where to start and how to go about doing it," she finally said. "I know there's a time concern here, so how about this: give me the rest of the day today to clear out our current projects and do some research on your system's specs. Be back here at 0700 tomorrow morning with the drive, and we'll get right into it. Deal?"

After a moment's consideration, Samus extended a hand in CJ's direction. "Deal."

"Excellent," CJ replied, grasping the hunter's hand firmly. "I'm looking forward to working with you."

* * *

Author's Notes: ...And cue the "Item Acquired" music. (In a role-player, it'd be "-Name- Joined Your Party," but Item Acquired was the closest analogue.)

The ship Samus is thinking about in the beginning of the chapter is _Hunter III,_ the gunship from _MP3: Corruption._ _Hunter II_ was the ship from _Metroid 2, MP2: Echoes _and_ Super, _which she crashed in the asteroid belt during _Fusion_'s opening scenes. Neural processors are Exactly What It Says On The Tin (tm TVTropes): computers made out of nervous tissue, which range in size from the Federation's Aurora superprocessors (and the Chozo Mother systems that preceded them) to commercially available microprocessors the size of a human brain.

The Barnard U psych/comp sci building is based on the psych/mathematics building at my old undergrad school. The building was shaped like a capital E, and each main corridor featured the same "office pod" arrangement described here. Combined with the total lack of signage and completely featureless decor, the place was all but un-navigable. Psych students did indeed joke that the building was designed as a rat maze for humans. :-)

The Syntronics manager was another point of amusement. You've all seen this type of guy before: usually in retail but certainly exists in other workplaces too, who hasn't a clue in hell how his office actually runs, confronted with a potentially volatile customer and no idea how he/she might have gotten that way. All he knows are the Ten Steps To Customer Satisfaction some consultant drone taught him at a Leadership Retreat, and he's going to pound those ten lines into the ground until one of you gives up or dies. Samus, smart cookie that she is, doesn't give him the chance.

As always, thank you to all of you for reading!


	5. Stormy Weather

Chapter 5: Stormy Weather

_Soundtrack: "P.H.D.," The Crystal Method, from the Tweekend album._

_

* * *

_

"Good morning, valued StarTel guest! This is your scheduled wake-up call. StarTel local time is 06:00. Time to rise and shine!"

Samus' reply was an incoherent snarl, as she stumbled out of bed and toward the bathroom. Early mornings had never agreed with her, either by temperament or by experience. Even as a child, she had preferred to stay up late and sleep in mornings, a trait that had frustrated her early-rising Chozo guardians to no end, and years of hunting the galaxy's most wanted had programmed her sleeping and waking cycles to run at night - pirates, criminal kingpins and the like rarely adhered to daytime business hours. To make matters worse, her "phantom armor syndrome" had kicked in full force around 22:00 the night before, insisting to her sleep-deprived brain that she should be sleeping locked upright in a recharging station, not flat on her back and stripped down to underwear. Finally, the ambient noise level of the spaceport hotel in which she'd taken up lodging had served to startle her awake every time she might have begun to drift off; she didn't care to take bets on which had disturbed her more, the spaceship traffic or the guests. None of those conditions made for a happy hunter, and combined, they propelled her attitude to new depths of anger. _What I wouldn't give for my armor and a couple of power bombs right now,_ she thought venomously as she slapped at the shower controls. _Serves me right for staying at a budget joint._

And to top it all off, the shower was ice cold.

Twenty minutes later, Samus emerged from her room, her still-damp hair pulled into a ponytail and wearing a navy blue T-shirt, utility trousers and boots, identical to the ones she'd worn the day before. The Valerian Station people had been kind enough to provide her with two changes of clothing when she'd left, but the military-issue garments left quite a bit to be desired in the style department. _Note to self: go shopping this afternoon,_ she thought as she stalked down the stairs. A gloomy gray dawn greeted her as she crossed the parking lot, and the clicking of her inner ears told her that rain would be coming sooner rather than later.

Unlike the day before, both parking on campus and retracing her path to the AI research lab posed her minimal difficulty. The door to the front office was locked, but a knock brought the student clerk to open it. "Oh, it's you again," she muttered. "Dr. Donovan said go right on back."

"Thank you," Samus replied neutrally, wondering if the girl treated everyone equally poorly or if she just particularly disliked her. Shaking her head, she walked back to the laboratory area.

"Hi, Samus," CJ called out, poking her head up from a mess of audio equipment, which was flanked on either side by a semi-circle of four chairs. "Just hooking up a few things. You're a little earlier than I thought. You got the drive?"

Samus reached into her thigh pocket and pulled out the metal oblong in its storage case, which earned her a grin from CJ. "Great. Just drop it over on that workbench. Everyone else'll be here in a few minutes. Coffee's fresh if you want it," she said, jerking a thumb toward her office. "Spare mugs are in my office. I brought in doughnuts and ham 'n cheese caliras from the bake shop. Help yourself."

"Thanks," Samus replied with genuine gratitude, availing herself of a mug and a calira before returning to the coffee pot. The Libran-style stuffed pastry turned out to taste much better than she'd expected, but it was the coffee that grabbed her attention: real beans, brewed double-strength, with just a pinch of salt to cut the bitterness. _Navy coffee,_ she thought with surprise, and she wondered just which branch of the armed forces CJ might have served in.

CJ glanced over at Samus and let out a brief chuckle at the other woman's rapt expression. "Should I leave you two alone?"

"What...? Oh, no, I'm fine. Just really enjoying this - I can't even tell you when I last had a proper cup of coffee."

"Eh, my dad taught me how to make it that way. It's the only way he'll drink coffee, and whatever you do, don't put anything in it." CJ took a deep swallow from her own mug as punctuation. "Rough night?"

"You could say that," Samus said with a snort of distaste. "I'd forgotten the hells of hotel living. Usually I'd stay aboard my ship, but since she's still in storage, and I can't get her out till I get my armor back..."

"Ouch. Poor you." CJ finished her task and walked over. "So, what is it exactly that you do for a living?"

Samus cocked her head quizzically, wondering if the other woman was having a laugh at her expense. "Fugitive recovery agent. Used to be a Fed, now I take contract work for them."

"Huh. Dennis said you were some kind of famous bounty hunter, but truth be told, I never pay attention to that kind of stuff."

"I wish I had that luxury. Most days I'm more famous than I would like," Samus agreed, finishing her coffee and going back for a refill.

Their conversation was interrupted by the presence of the student clerk, who had poked her head through the door. "Dr. Donovan, the rest of the team is here," she said grumpily.

_So it's not just me,_ Samus thought with a smirk.

The door slid back open a second later, admitting two men, one fairly young and the other of indeterminate middle age, who helped themselves to coffee and pastry before taking their seats. The neural unit had been wheeled into position in the circle as well, and Samus allowed herself a mental smile - apparently CJ respected her artificially intelligent "colleague" as much as the humans.

"Morning, everyone," CJ said as everyone settled in. "I thought we'd do some quick introductions before we get started. Everyone, this is Samus Aran, bounty hunter and job sponsor. Around the room, we've got Mal Jones, graduate student on loan from the electrical engineering department, his specialty's hardware; Nan Shenjiang, adjunct professor, also from comp sci, expert on software forensics; you already know me; and our neural unit, known to one and all as Frank in the Tank."

"Yo," said Jones, the engineer, as the forensics expert acknowledged her with a slight bow of the head.

_"Oh, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance,"_ the AI said, its voice somewhat high-pitched for a male personality. _"Don't listen to her, I prefer Francis. And I don't live in a tank. I've told you only about a million times, it's called a homeostatic chamber."_

Samus bit back a laugh at Frank's - or rather "Francis'" mannerisms. "Nice to meet you all."

"Samus, would you mind recapping for the rest of the group what you told me yesterday, so we're all on the same page?" CJ asked, leaning back in her chair.

The hunter replied with a nod. "Three days ago - well, three days GST, so that's two days and change local time - my ship's onboard computer was hacked by some unknown attacker. Right before he shut himself down to stop the damage, he told me that he had knowledge of at least one murder, and that the hacker had targeted him to stop the information from spreading."

"Sounds like something out of a bad spy vid," Jones smirked.

CJ shot him a glare as Samus continued speaking. "When I returned to Federation space, Adam's original owners did their own analysis and claimed he was rogue, that he had faked the hack attempt to disguise his instability. They condemned him for deletion as a result. Which is why the Feds refused to give me his - daemon, do you call it?"

"Yeah, that figures. Liability problem, probably. Damn legal B.S."

"--Anyway, to shorten a long story, I want to know what exactly he's hanging onto that would be so important, and I'm hoping all of you can help me."

"It will be extremely long odds," Shenjiang said. "CJ said your system is a neural hybrid, no? Recovering such a system's data without its daemon, many think it to be impossible."

"That's what I warned her of yesterday, but I think there might be a way to pull it off," CJ said.

"So: how do you propose to go about recovering Adam?"

"I thought you'd never ask." CJ turned to a nearby whiteboard, sketching out a series of diagrams and an itemized work plan. "Part of the problem with trying to recover a neural or neural-hybrid AI is that there's no real organization to the memory storage. It's just a cloud of engrams tied together in a giant Gordian knot, and every daemon has a different way of linking and storing 'em. Trying to find one specific engram in that kind of snarl - good luck. It'll take you years. So, instead of trying to dig through the cloud brute-force, we're going to try and recreate what Adam might have been thinking right before he shut down. That'll give us a series of engram 'signatures' to look for, and we can run the trace from there and see what those records lead to - in short, try to untie the knot from many different points at once. With luck, one of them will be what you're looking for."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Samus asked.

"That depends," CJ replied. "Yeah, we're going to need you to put together Adam's last conversation for us, but other than that - well, what _can_ you do?"

"I'm pretty good with hardware. Software, forget it - I never made it much past 'hello world' - but turn me loose with a pair of pliers and a multimeter and I can fix just about any optical or electronic assemblage you'd care to name."

"Then go in that drawer and get yourself a pair of pliers and a multimeter," CJ chuckled. "You and Mal's first order of business is to hook this puppy up for analysis."

Five hours later, Adam's storage drive, now partially disassembled and sporting an array of wires and sensors, lay sealed in a manipulator box while CJ, Samus, Mal and Nan crowded around a flat-panel monitor, watching Nan and Frank in the Tank laboriously crack their way past the layers of military-grade encryption protecting the AI's memory storage.

_"And that's the final layer,"_ Frank announced, and if the neural unit had had a body, one might imagine it to be dancing with glee.

"So what's the verdict?" Samus asked. "Is he recoverable?"

"Too little data to say at this point. I can tell you one thing, though," Shenjiang said, his eyes obscured behind his datashades. "Whoever told you this unit never suffered an intrusion attempt was quite obviously lying. Even at this most basic level of analysis, I can see several points of compromise in the base operating system. It appears the attacker came in through the hardware network addressing stack."

"That's exactly what Adam said right during the crash," Samus added. "He said whoever the hacker was knew his hardware addresses, and that was why he couldn't simply cut off the connection."

"In addition, someone has installed an administrator-level override within the kernel itself. It is a self-aware subroutine, and likely will attempt to compromise any data we attempt to retrieve."

"A rootkit. Fabulous." CJ groaned, running a hand through her hair. "Any ideas on how to get around it?"

Samus simply stared at the screen silently, anger simmering beneath her placid exterior. _Sometimes I really hate being right,_ she thought cynically. The Federation engineers had lied to her about the hack attempt, if nothing else, and she didn't believe for a second that their untruths might have stopped there. For the first time, the realization struck home: this wasn't a rescue mission so much as a murder investigation, and standing around watching over her hired brains' shoulders was serving no one, least of all the dead man at the heart of the case. On the other hand, when it came to hunting down criminals...

"Where's the nearest place with open network access?" she said suddenly.

"Hmm?" CJ replied. "If it's just a basic link you want, you can get on here, or the undergrad library's on the northwest corner of the quad, or any of the local java joints. For specialty stuff, you'd have to-- hey, where are you going?"

"Doing what I do best," Samus replied cryptically. "Good work. Keep it up."

"What the hell? _Samus!"_

The hiss of the closing door was Samus' only response, as she blew out of the lab without a backward glance.

* * *

In a seedy bar in downtown Mandeville, a young man had just lifted his glass of liquor to his lips when the portable communicator clipped to his belt began vibrating. With a grumble, he tossed off a hefty slug of his drink before setting the glass down and checking the device's screen.

_**TO: (ULIST_firewatch)  
FROM:**** 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7348**__**#admin-comp-sci*barnard*edu  
MSG: unit_ident_0129/****power_cycle_count_increment/disk_read_increment/selftest_pass/status:ready-to-receive-commands**_

"Just what I didn't need," the man grumbled under his breath. The 'Firewatch' message was an automated cry for help - a warning from a Federation computer system that it had been compromised, where it was currently located and an indication that it was ready to receive a delete or self-destruct command.

Dialing a long-ago memorized alphanumeric code, the man said quietly, "This is Allegro. Today's authenticator is 'cerulean apple pica.' I've received a Firewatch message local to my station. Advise."

_"One moment while we transfer your call."_ A moment later, the Aurora Unit running the switchboard clicked off, followed by a gruff masculine voice. _"Allegro, this is Cardinal Actual. Read back that Firewatch call for me, will you?"_

The man did so_,_ and the voice on the other end of the line replied, _"Be advised that this compartment has vested interest in that unit and will assume final control for its dispositions. Your future communications with us in this matter will be compartmented 'Blackberry.'"  
_

"Understood. What do you want me to do with it?"

_"Observe but do not interfere. Be advised that we believe successful recovery of the unit or its data to be impossible. Executive believes it's best if the attempt fails of its own accord."_

"Understood."

_"Also, be advised that one of the principals is a highly placed private contractor, who we suspect may try to go off the reservation if you're made. We're sending you the dossier now. Avoid at all costs. If you do encounter this principal, we will have Guardian Angel support on standby for you. Cardinal Actual, clear."_

The man hung up his call, his head spinning. 'Guardian Angel' denoted an orbital surgical strike - a single kinetic weapon, launched from any one of a dozen carefully concealed satellites, that could strike any point on the planet and obliterate everything within a one-kilometer radius of its impact point. _Who in the galaxy would they need a Guardian Angel strike to take out?_ he thought with consternation.

A moment later, his communicator bleeped again, and he got his answer as he opened the file.

_Oh, bloody hell._

Waving to the bartender, the man growled, "I need another drink. Better make it a double."

Had she witnessed the exchange, the woman whose photograph headed the dossier might have agreed.

* * *

"Refill that for you, ma'am?" the barista asked politely, indicating the empty tea mug with a smile.

Samus' reply consisted of a grunt and a nod, absorbed as she was in the personnel file she was reading. Considering that the file in question belonged to one Commander Adam Malkovich, GFN (deceased), most of its contents consisted of events she'd either experienced personally or heard of from the man in question. The overall effect had provided her a trip down a rather covert and bloody Memory Lane.

The afternoon had passed Samus by in a blur of activity, as she had combed the information networks and called in favors across half the galaxy for information on Adam's living activities and associates. Statistically speaking, she knew that over eighty percent of homicide victims knew their killers, and Adam had, by numerous past admissions, cultivated a minimal social life outside the Navy and his family. Thus, logic dictated that the first place to search out the guilty party would be among Adam's former colleagues, with his widow and any other surviving family as a first alternative. As a result, she had tracked down every major mission Adam had participated in, looking up whatever records had been released to public domain or which she could obtain through back channels. That search had netted her a list of commanding and immediate subordinate officers, which she was now cross-referencing against the Federation Police's list of known felons. That task would probably consume another day or so, but she didn't mind; the task would keep her occupied while CJ's analysis of the storage drive generated some more concrete leads.

As though on cue, the door of the coffee shop swung open to admit CJ and a gust of rain from the street outside. She wore a university windbreaker in place of her lab coat, and in one hand she carried a still-wet umbrella.

"Hello, CJ," Samus said, glancing up from her stack of prints. "Don't mind the comm if it rings. Have a seat if you like."

"What are you doing?"

Samus waved a hand at her portable terminal's screen. "Looking up information on Adam's memograph donor. His service jacket and so forth. Since I already know the DFDI people lied to me about Adam being hacked, it's a good guess they lied about there never having been a murder too. I want to find out what Adam's donor might have been doing to get mixed up in something like that."

"That's fine, but do you mind telling me what all that 'doing what I do best' routine was about?" CJ demanded, arms locked behind her back in a parade rest stance.

Samus frowned deeply, not liking CJ's tone one bit, as her own demeanor turned icily calm. She stood from the table, her stance guarded as though for combat. "An answer to your question. You asked me what I was doing. Not that you would deserve an answer in any case, since what I do is none of your business."

The dismissal only served to anger CJ further, as she stalked toward Samus, eyes flashing. "All right, let's get something clear here, shall we? When someone agrees to do a job for you, particularly a job that you aren't equipped to do yourself, the proper way to excuse yourself from that post is 'By your leave, I have other issues to attend.' You don't blow in and out like you own the place, and you sure as hell don't run around spewing bad vid lines like 'doing what I do best.' Maybe you can get away with that kind of disrespect out being a bounty hunter, but around here, that goes over about as well as a lead turd, got it? Now you can do whatever you want, but if you expect me and my team to get your AI straightened out for you, I'd strongly advise that you secure your attitude. Understood?"

Samus' right hand had slid back to her hip, hovering where one might expect to find a holstered weapon, and for several seconds, the women stared each other down. Finally Samus blinked, dropping her hands to her sides and looking away. "Sorry. I've not had the best few days, and what your colleague said about the intrusion attempt, particularly about it being so obvious, kind of hit a sore spot with me... it was like saying that the whole galaxy knew Adam's donor had been murdered all along, so what the hell was I doing about it. You didn't deserve my acting out."

"Apology accepted." CJ flashed a grin at Samus, dropping into the second of the two chairs. "So, the other reason I came looking for you was to tell you we disabled the rootkit in Adam's drive. Tenacious little beast, but Frank finally managed to dig it out. Starting first thing tomorrow morning, we're going to need your input to start the engram analysis."

Samus blinked in surprise, feeling a twinge of guilt for having treated the scientist and her team so poorly. "That was fast. If I didn't owe you before, I do now."

"Hey, don't go beating yourself up over that incident before. You apologized; we're good." Pointing to the stack of printouts, CJ continued, "Find out anything interesting?"

Samus nodded, ticking off points on the fingers of her left hand. "Most of it was basic research, but I got some good information on his last few missions. Problem is, not everyone's a comm call away, especially those who're on deployment or left the service. I won't be able to talk to some of them until I can get my ship, and since I can't do that without my armor, I'm hanging fire until the gearheads decide they're finished breaking enough of it to give it back."

CJ regarded Samus with a quizzical expression. "You said that this morning, too. Why would you need armor to get your ship...?"

Samus very nearly snorted in disbelief until she remembered that CJ, having heard nothing of her past exploits, likely wouldn't know about the machine that underpinned her entire life. "Not so much the armor itself as the command system built into it. It's a long story, but--" She paused, searching for a suitable analogy. "Okay, do you know how Marines' combat suits work? You've seen them before?"

"You mean ICPE gear? Of course."

"Well, I have a custom armor suit that's kind of like that, but several generations more advanced. You'd probably recognize it if you saw it; there was a period back in '25 where for almost two months, I couldn't go a day without seeing my tin-can self all over the news nets... anyway, after my last mission, my armor got pretty comprehensively trashed. The Navy Engineering field division at Valerian Station's been hanging onto it ever since. Allegedly they're trying to fix it, but in the past, they've not had the best track record for returning it in working order, so..." Samus trailed off, her shrug and frown indicating her opinion on Federation Navy repair services. She leaned over to the portable terminal, putting the device to sleep as she stuffed her communicator into her pocket. "And on that note, I think I'm going to pack it up for the night. I assume we'll be starting early again tomorrow, and I have a few errands to run before I head back to my hotel."

"Where are you staying, anyway?" Off Samus' questioning look, CJ continued, "This morning, you said you had a tough time with your hotel. I wondered where you were staying. It's no big deal, though, I was just curious."

"At the StarTel by the spaceport," Samus replied, and CJ stared at her in shock. "You're joking, right?"

Slightly confused, Samus said, "No. Why would I?"

"Oh God, you _are_ serious. That's it, there will be no argument. You have got to find someplace else to stay."

"Huh?"

"That particular StarTel is the biggest roach resort in the galaxy, and someone's probably died in your room at least once," CJ said, shaking her head in disgust. "I wouldn't make my worst enemy stay there."

"I can manage just fine," Samus began, but CJ cut her off. "No, I mean it. The only reason you'd ever want to step foot in that rathole is because practically every criminal element in the sector hangs out there. Just last week, there was a failed drug deal that killed five people and sent six more to the hospital. I would never forgive myself if you got mixed up in something like that." She tilted her head to one side, as though just realizing something. "You know, you'd be welcome to crash on my couch if you wanted. It would save you the hotel bill, if nothing else."

Samus felt her temper rising at the idea of the younger woman ordering her around, or worse, looking after her welfare, but she did have to admit that her current lodgings were less than ideal. "You're already doing enough for me," she said, trying another tactic. "I'd feel uncomfortable imposing on you at home as well."

"It's no imposition at all," CJ replied, ushering Samus out of the coffee shop and opening the umbrella for both of them to share. "I have a pull-out bed for when my parents visit. I'm told it's quite comfortable. We're going to the same place every day, so it's not like I have to tell you how to get across town or anything. And you'd be perfectly safe with me. I'm in an okay neighborhood, and I have top-notch security."

"Don't be offended, but I'd be more worried that _you_ would be the threat to my safety," Samus pointed out. "I don't make a habit of going places with people I don't know very well."

"That's smart of you, but you do know me, and you also know that if I truly wanted to harm you, I wouldn't have to invite you home to do it. Besides, I'd think that you must trust me to some degree, otherwise you'd never have let me near Adam." CJ looked at Samus with a winning smile. "So?"

Samus continued to hesitate. A lifetime of solitude, self-reliance and occasionally-justified paranoia had conditioned her to distrust anyone's offer of help or friendship, and the few times she had accepted such offers, the situation had invariably turned out poorly. On the other hand, she was already dependent upon CJ's assistance to rescue Adam; it only made sense that having trusted CJ with one life, she could trust her with a second.

In the end, force of habit won out.

"I appreciate the offer, that's very kind of you, but really, I'm fine on my own."

"Oh. All right." CJ smiled and shrugged, but the nonchalance didn't reach her eyes. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"See you then. And thank you." Samus strode off across the street, leaving CJ standing on the sidewalk, staring out into the rain.

* * *

Author's Notes: Okay, let's try this again. :-) Yes, it's still a bridge, but at least there's _some_ activity this time around.

"Frank in the Tank" is a shout-out to _Mystery Science Theater 3000,_ "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," in which the severed head of a nurse is re-animated and kept alive in a vat of nutrient solution; Mike and the Bots universally refer to her as "Jan in the Pan." The statistics on murder are taken from the latest US Justice Department reports. ICPE is short for Integrated Combat Protective Environment, the Federation military's term for the armor suits worn by the Marines in _Metroid Prime 2: Echoes_ and _Metroid Prime 3: Corruption._

Thanks for putting up with my ill-starred first attempt at this chapter, and thanks for reading!


	6. Bird on a Wire

Chapter 6: Bird on a Wire

___Soundtrack: "Spotter," Yoko Kanno, from the Be Human album._

* * *

"Where in all the hells is she?" Samus muttered to herself, pacing outside the door to the AI laboratory. At this early hour, the Barnard University campus was deserted, to the point where she'd had to flag down a nearby campus security officer to let her into the building. Upon making her way to the fifth floor, she found the lab locked, and a large cart bearing some kind of projection device and stenciled "BU AV SVCS" parked outside the door.

"Oh good, the AV guys dropped off my holo," a voice echoed as the nearby stairwell access door swung open. A moment later, CJ appeared in the corridor, juggling two briefcases and a lunch sack. "Sorry I'm late," she said, palmprinting the door and flipping on the office lights. "Traffic was a beast this morning. Would you mind grabbing that cart? Just put it in the middle of the room, thanks."

Samus' reply was a vaguely affirmative grunt. "Where's everyone else?" she grumbled.

CJ shrugged as she finished powering up the various analysis tools and connecting the device on the cart. "We don't need Mal from this point forward, and Nan's got staff meetings all day, so it's just us. Which is cool, because actually it'll be Frank who does all the heavy lifting today."

"How so?"

"Here, I'll show you." CJ sat down at one of the computer terminals connected to Adam's storage drive. A few moments later, the lights dimmed, and a massive sphere of data points erupted from the device's holoprojection nodes. "This is a schematized projection of the engram map from the Adam data. Each of the points you see here represents a hundred thousand engrams, and each of those is a single file containing a single memory. However, like I said the other day, none of them are labeled, so the only way to try and tease out what's what is to generate a 'template' map containing the information we're looking for, and then use that to try and look for similarities. What we're going to do is have you answer a series of questions about your last conversation with Adam. Frank here will convert your answers into an engram map, which we'll then use to search the Adam data for a set of engrams that might match it."

Samus frowned at that, arms folded across her chest. "He's going to read my mind?" she said skeptically.

"No, he only records what you say and then fills in the blanks with the most likely correlations," CJ replied with a chuckle. "Here, we'll do a test run. It works best with concrete ideas, but this guy's pretty decent on abstract stuff too. Frank, record mode on."

_"Any time you're ready,"_ Frank said, as the holoprojector blanked itself.

Samus cleared her throat, irrationally nervous over the situation. "From the dawn of our people's history, we have been watchers, studying the depths of all that we encounter in order that we may comprehend the mysteries at the heart of the universe. We hold our knowledge in open hands, sharing with all who seek us in peace-- _holy sh..._"

The hunter trailed off in mid-sentence, astounded at the cloud of concepts that had sprung fully formed from the holoprojector above her head. From the main point, "Our People," a sub-shoot reading "Advanced species - ? Text analysis suggests Chozo or N'Kren" hung below, with several additional points "Observational nature," "Study of universe," "Unified theories," "Peaceful collaboration" and "Dissemination of knowledge" floating above it. Each branch point sprouted several of its own branches dealing with everything from philosophy to astrophysics, generating an entire tree of information from just a few spoken lines.

CJ grinned at Samus' amazed pronouncement. "Pretty slick, eh?"

_"I'm rather proud of it myself,"_ Frank added, with a self-satisfied giggle.

"That's incredible," Samus murmured, pacing around the display. "Okay, delete that - wait, do you have to give the commands?"

"No, Frank will listen to you, but once we start the map for real, it's easier if you let me do it," the scientist replied. "All set?"

Samus nodded once. "Let's do this."

"All right. Frank, delete last map. Sam, anytime you're ready."

Samus glanced up sharply at the words. The request didn't bother her, but the abbreviation of her name brought her up short. "What did you just call me?"

CJ frowned at the sudden chill in the other woman's tone of voice, and kicked herself mentally as she saw the look of disdain there. Clearly she'd stepped on another of Samus' verbal land mines. "Frank, pause. Sorry about that," she said lamely. "I guess you don't like nicknames..."

"You're right," Samus replied flatly. "If you have to talk to me, use my name properly."

"Oh. All right." CJ went back to her keyboard, but the hurt still lingered in her eyes. Samus watched her out of her peripheral vision, feeling a bit of chagrin as she noticed the stricken look on CJ's face. _Would it really kill you to give the girl a chance, after she's bent over backward to help you?_ she thought.

"That was uncalled for," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I-- I'm sorry." After a pause, she continued, "It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. To my mind, the only people who should call you by a nickname are family, friends and lovers. Otherwise, you use someone's full name or a title."

"Fair enough," CJ replied, looking up to meet Samus' eyes once more. "Obviously you and I aren't related or involved, so those are both out." With a shrug and in a softer tone, she finished, "But I know that I think of you as a friend. I'd like to think that you might see me the same way."

Samus did not reply, instead staring at CJ with an inscrutable expression. CJ swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat, and forced herself back to her work. "Ahem. Anyway, whenever you're ready."

"Okay. Adam's last conversation. Honestly, it was mostly gibberish to me, but here's what I remember. He said something about a flaming sword and smiting evildoers, secrets paid for in blood, and then a bunch of stuff about serpents and leperous distilments. I looked that bit up myself later and found out it was from some ancient text called 'Hamlet.' Before that was just about the hack attempt itself. He said whoever was hacking him was doing so through hardware, and the attempt couldn't be stopped without losing vital ship systems. Before that, we were talking about the impending fallout from my mission on the BSL station. I was concerned that we were going to face official charges for what happened, and he said that someone in power would understand, that they had to."

"Frank, pause." The holo-display froze on the forest of ideas Samus' recollections had generated. "Set focus on Tree 1," CJ said, causing the first stack containing the Hamlet references to highlight and expand. "Samus, can you clarify any of these at all?"

Samus studied the idea tree, focusing on the point marked "Flaming sword" and the profusion of possible myths and legends above it. "Hang on. That one right there, the Claimh Solais one. That was the name of the ship human Adam died on. That might be important."

"Okay, that's good. We'll set that as an emphasis point. Anything else?"

After several seconds of examination, the hunter shook her head no. "That's it."

"All right," CJ said, locking the selections into the analysis software. "The search and comparison is going to take a few hours at least. I've got some other work to finish up, so if you want to hang here or take off, it's up to you."

Samus shrugged, pulling up a chair and dropping into it. "Mind if I use your network access, then? If nothing else, I'd like to call the engineers at Valerian and see if they're done hacking up my armor yet."

The scientist waved a hand in a "help yourself" gesture. "Go ahead."

A silent hour passed, until the coffee CJ had been drinking throughout the morning made its presence evident. "Excuse me. Head call. I'll be back in a minute," she said quietly, pushing back from her keyboard.

"I wouldn't mind so much." The words were spoken so softly, CJ didn't even hear them at first.

"Huh?"

"The nickname thing. You're pleasant, you're helpful, you don't make a big fuss about me or my job, and you haven't tried to kill me or sell me out, at least as far as I know. That already puts you in the top five percent of people I've dealt with," Samus continued in the same quiet voice, although this time the hint of a laugh laced it. "Besides, I've been called worse."

"Do I want to know?" CJ inquired half-teasingly, a genuine smile spreading across her features.

"A girl – woman – I knew a long time ago." Pause. "She used to call me Sammy."

CJ couldn't stop the gale of giggles that followed, bending double and crossing her legs to avoid embarrassment. "_Sammy?_ Oh Lord, that's awful," she managed to groan out, still laughing. "Don't tell me she was a Squaddie?"

Samus' response was a blank look. "You mean someone in the service? No."

"No, capital-S Squaddie. A _Galaxy Squad_ fan_._ You know, that asinine old holodrama all the baby geeks obsess over?"

"No idea what that is," Samus replied, with a shake of the head.

"You haven't missed anything, trust me," CJ chuckled. "Anyway, one of the main characters was Sammy Stargazer, the ship's navigator. I can't remember if she was an android or a cyborg or what - something not entirely human, at any rate. Anyway, her big deal was that she always pined for true love but could never experience it, being an android. Of course, that didn't stop Captain Galactica trying to nail her in every episode, but oh well. I just wondered if it might be where your friend got the nickname."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Samus said quietly. "She died several years ago, so unfortunately, there's no chance of asking her." With a shrug, she changed the subject. "Anyway. You go take your break, and then I've got a few things to do off campus. The Valerian guys said they're done with my armor, so I need to go arrange a flight out there, and then on to Aliehs III."

"What's on Aliehs III? I know Federated Techsystems has its headquarters there, but why would you...?"

"My ship. I have a client hangar there," Samus explained shortly.

"Oh." CJ blinked involuntarily at the hunter's pronouncement. The various branches of Federated Techsystems supplied weapons and equipment to the GFDF and half a dozen other governments' armed forces, but they also maintained a small business in custom construction for selected private entities. From everything she had heard, obtaining a slot on Federated's 'preferred client' list required either an ungodly amount of money or massive political clout, and preferably both. "When do you think you'll be back?"

"I probably won't be able to leave till tomorrow, and from there it's four days Galactic Standard, give or take. Depends on how lucky I am with the spacelines' flight schedules." Samus offered a disdainful half-smile. "One of the many, many reasons I hate flying commercial."

CJ chuckled at that. "Guess I'll see you later, then. I'll call you if anything juicy comes up here."

* * *

A thousand light-years away, in the upper levels of a nondescript office building on the planet Daiban, a group of men gathered in a richly decorated room. By all records, the office space belonged to a low-level political lobby organization called the Cardinal Initiative for Domestic Aid. Like so many things in the Federation's capital, though, it represented something entirely different in reality.

"Our colleagues from the Gaflar belt are most displeased with this turn of events out at Sigma Reticuli," said the first man, a thin, graying individual in the robes of a Cabinet minister. "Did no one suspect that hiring a civilian contractor to investigate one of our most carefully guarded clandestine facilities might turn out badly?"

"You'll recall I voted for a Special Operations tasking from the start," Admiral Renard commented, his voice carefully even.

"We couldn't deploy SOC that fast," the second man countered. "As you well know, Charles, you and the _Loki_ didn't arrive on-scene until forty-plus hours into the mission. We needed boots on the deck immediately, and there was a known biohazard issue. It so happened that the one contractor available was also immune to the threat. We all know hindsight is 6/6, but looking back on it with the information we had available, I fail to see how we could have run the operation any differently."

"I am sure my superiors will be pleased to hear that you could not have saved four years' worth of research we bought with our blood," the third man wheezed through his translator box.

"Gentlemen, we have a more serious problem," Renard said, his voice tense. "In the immediate aftermath of the incident, I discovered that the private contractor _certain individuals,_" and here he shot a murderous glance at the man from the Ministry of State, "hired to manage the incident received an artificially intelligent command system containing the memograph of another individual, known to be a threat to this group. The initial threat was dealt with six years ago, and we considered the matter closed. However, my investigations indicate that not only has the system regained knowledge of its past actions, but apparently it and this PMC have some significant past history." The admiral took a deep breath, gazing around the room. "When I learned of the problem, I issued an immediate sanitization order, but unfortunately only the remote portion of the package was able to be executed. As a result, the system still remains active, has been duplicated in at least one location, and we at DFDI have been legally constrained from destroying it until an independent, civilian analysis can be carried out. Gentlemen, every second this system continues to exist is a threat to our survival. I have the assets in place to deal with it, but I'll need deniability."

"What kind of maneuver are you considering?" the first man asked.

"Guardian Angel strike against the civilian end of the threat. Call it a gas leak or a terrorist attack. Training casualties against the Defense Forces end. Zara, your comrades could contribute on either op if you wanted better cover. Full informatics purge package to make sure nothing escaped onto the galactic networks."

"You want to use a Guardian Angel against a major metropolitan research university, and shut down the galactic information networks on top of the bargain," the second man muttered, shaking his head. "Denying that kind of action won't be easy. Or cheap."

Renard shot back, "Given the circumstances, I think it's the only way to ensure our security."

"So, let me make sure I understand this correctly," the third man said in his wheezing, gurgling voice. "You asked us to allow you to deal with the situation at Biologic. You failed. You were assigned to deal with the problem of The Hunter, this Samus Aran. You failed. Now, we find that a threat you dealt with six years ago has returned, and you believe that we should once more clean up your mess. Forgive me, Charles, but we have a saying: madness is the repetition of a behavior with the expectation of different results."

"But surely--" Renard protested.

"Let's all take a deep breath and consider the situation rationally," the first man said. "Zara, regardless of what you may think of Charles' past performance, it benefits none of us to allow his threat to expose our group. If this... mad computer poses as dire a risk as he claims, then we must put a stop to it. Horace, you have the most familiarity with these matters. Do you think this machine actually knows anything of import?"

The fourth man, Horace, shook his head, helping himself to a glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard. "Even if it does, it's no threat," he said dismissively. "The system's in lockdown at Valerian Station, and it's scheduled to be destroyed in a week's time. Would be already if Aran hadn't filed the challenge. Besides, she won't be able to get anything out of it. You can't recover any meaningful data from a neural-type AI if you don't have its daemon, and we made sure she didn't get a copy. She can hire every cyberneticist in the galaxy and screw around with the memory store from now till the heat death of the universe if she likes; all she'll get out of it is gibberish."

"And what of the risk in neutralizing it? Thabo?"

"There's always risk with a black op," the second man replied. "More so in this case. We only have one asset on the ground, and he's strictly an observer. If we put him in play with no cover, you might as well hang up a giant sign that says 'Secret agents were here.' Everyone with two brain cells is going to know it was a hit, and worse, 'everyone' includes Aran. She gets a whiff of our involvement, she'll go off the reservation so fast it'll make your head spin."

"Let her," Renard snorted. "At the end of the day, she's just another half-wit head chaser. We can step on her at any time. The real threat is Unit 129."

"No, Charles, that's where you're wrong," Thabo retorted. "I'm guessing you never read her full dossier. Samus Aran isn't just your garden-variety bounty hunter. Way back in galactic history, the Chozo maintained a peacekeeping force called Defenders. They served as police, judge, jury and executioner anywhere in Chozo territory. The Defenders were basically warrior monks; they were trained from early childhood to protect the innocent and uphold the law at all costs, they lived by an ironclad honor code, they weren't allowed families or any other attachments that could cloud their judgment or make them vulnerable to coercion. From all accounts, they were utterly incorruptible. Aran's an orphan; her homeworld was hit by Space Pirates back in '03. After that, she was taken in by the last Chozo on Zebes, who raised and trained her as the last of the Defenders. From her own past statements and actions, it's a role she takes very, very seriously. She's very bright, very shrewd, highly driven, skilled in multiple schools of armed and unarmed combat, and that doesn't even get into her equipment. Even bug-infested and shot to pieces, her combat suit is at least two generations ahead of anything we've ever fielded. This is not a woman you ever want to cross."

"Can we turn her to our purpose?" the first man said.

"Unlikely. We collaborate with numerous entities that she believes to be a threat to galactic safety. Even if she believes in our cause, we're tainted by association." Thabo shook his head in dismay. "If she learns of our existence, she will not rest until we're all obliterated. I'd bet my last credit on it."

"Then our wisest course of action seems to be watchful waiting," the first man announced. "This 129 machine cannot harm us in its current state, and we risk far more than we would gain if we act against it. Gentlemen, thank you for your counsel and your assistance. If no one else has further business, I believe we're done here."

Renard picked up his combination cap from the table and seated it firmly on his head, his eyes burning with anger as he stalked out of the room.

* * *

Samus picked half-heartedly at her room service tray, unable to swallow more than a few bites of the meal she'd ordered. Although she knew on an intellectual level that she had to eat, she simply couldn't find anything that looked appetizing on the menu. She'd managed to choke down about half of the dish, but the idea of eating any more of it left her distinctly nauseated.

The communicator began to warble just then, saving her from the hells of macaroni and cheese. Samus picked the device up, glancing at its "incoming call" display: a communications pool code on the Barnard University campus. "Hello?"

_"Hi, Sam,"_ CJ's voice echoed across the connection. _"We got a hit on the engram map."_

Samus stood up and began to pace the floor, all malaise forgotten. "What'd you find?"

_"You were right about the flaming sword linking to Claimh Solais, but the coincident links were more interesting. See, you'd expect all that Hamlet business to link to engrams dealing with betrayal and revenge, because that's what the play was about, right? But, here's the weird part. The Claimh Solais legend has nothing to do with those themes, and yet the same links come up."_

"So if betrayal and revenge are associated with Claimh Solais, that has to be referring to the ship or something that happened on it. What's downstream of those links?" Samus queried.

_"Two points. One's tagged DFDI, the other is Cardinal. Any ideas what that might mean?"_

"Well, DFDI is Defense Intelligence, that's obvious," the hunter mused. "Cardinal, though... I've got nothing. Just based on the context, it has to be a code word, but I haven't a clue what for."

_"Huh. Back to square one,"_ CJ said, disappointment coloring her tone.

"I'll keep looking into it on my end," Samus promised. "Anyway, my flight doesn't leave till 13:30 tomorrow, so I'll have time to stop by the lab before I go."

_"Good. See you tomorrow, then."_

Samus hung up the call and sat silently for several seconds, lost in thought. Although she still had no idea who or what Cardinal might be, the implications of its context pointed to a number of conclusions, none of which she liked.

_I'll look into it tomorrow,_ she thought as she closed her eyes. _I'll have a pile of time to kill on the flight, anyway._

Ten minutes later, the portable terminal slid to the floor, accompanied by a soft rumbling snore.

* * *

Back in his office at GFB Sector Zero, Renard sat behind his desk, absently playing with the authentication card between his fingers as he stared out into the alien sunrise. By his standards, his meeting with the other members of Cardinal had been an ignominious failure. _They're all losing their minds over some bounty hunter, and they're going to let that Goddamned Malkovich slip right through their fingers,_ he thought poisonously.

Well, if no one else saw the threat, by God, he did, and he was going to deal with it, deniability or not.

Picking up the secure communications terminal on his desk, he dialed a long alphanumeric sequence and waited.

_"Go ahead,"_ said the digitally masked voice of the field agent on the other end of the line.

"This is Cardinal Five," he said. "Today's authenticator is 'amber boulevard buddleia.' I'm calling in regard to compartment Blackberry."

_"Affirmative. How can I help you?"_

"The situation has changed. I believe the principals are closer to recovering the unit than anyone anticipated. Your new task is to see to the unit's destruction. I trust you'll come up with something suitably deniable."

_"Sir, my last order was to observe only,"_ the agent said carefully. _"I was given to understand that the orders came from Executive. Has the situation changed?"_

"To hell with Executive, _I_ give the--" Renard roared, before biting off his sentence with an audible snap. In a tone that positively vibrated with rage, he finished, "Yes, the situation has changed. Executive is out of the loop. This threat needs to be dealt with before any more damage is done. I don't care how you do it or what kind of collateral damage it causes, but _I. Want. That. Unit. Destroyed._ Is that clear?"

The agent's voice, when he replied, was utterly flat. _"Yes, sir."_

* * *

Samus startled out of her doze, gaze flicking around the room as she tried to discern what might have roused her. A moment later, she heard it again: shouts of anger and crashing sounds, interspersed with the distinctive explosive cracks of chemical-powered firearms. She shook off the blankets and stood up, moving silently toward the door. Unconsciously her right ring and pinky fingers curled back, leaving the other three protruding, and her left hand had made it three-quarters of the way up to her temple before she realized that neither gesture meant a thing without her armor to interpret them.

_That does it,_ she thought. She had to get her armor back post-haste; she was just too 'wired' to its idiosyncrasies, and going without it was going to get her killed sooner rather than later. But first, she had to get out of this war zone of a hotel.

Returning to the main room and picking up her portable terminal, she called up a list of local hotels and started making inquiries.

Ten minutes later, Samus felt very much like throwing something, as every one of her searches had come to naught. Of the other five hotels in the Mandeville metropolitan area, all five had turned down her room request. The luxury hotel downtown had been entirely reserved for a legal advocates' conference, while the other four mid-range properties were simply sold out. With a snort of amusement, she realized that the only place still offering occupancy was her current lodging, and for what she now knew to be very good reason.

_Well, there's always the alternative. If you don't mind a big serving of humble pie, of course..._

"To hell with this," she muttered to herself. Her pride wasn't worth her life or her sanity. Picking up the terminal, she entered a final search query. Five minutes later, duffel bag slung over her shoulder, she ran down the stairs and out into the pouring rain.

* * *

With a mug of coffee at her elbow, CJ sat cross-legged on her sofa at home, scanning through the latest batch of Adam data. Much like Samus had earlier in the day, she had come up blank on the importance of Cardinal, but rather than turn to external investigations as Samus had, CJ chose to remain within the data set, looking for correlations between Cardinal and any other engrams that might give her a clue as to his, her or its identity.

Not for the first time since embarking on the project, her thoughts turned to the mysterious bounty hunter and the AI at the heart of it all. She had spent the last two and a half days working directly with Samus, and nearly every attempt she had made to learn anything about her new colleague had met with either stony silence or a curt dismissal. Strangely, though, Samus didn't fit the profile of the usual arrogant know-it-all type one might associate with her behavior; quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, her reticence seemed to spring from some deeper source, and CJ couldn't begin to guess at what that might be. Her knowledge of Adam sported just as many holes. Based on comments and inference, she had managed to figure out that he had been a deceased Navy officer, but that left no clues as to how he and Samus might have related to each other, either in his human life or in his electronic existence.

_Well, if I ever manage to talk to him, I'll have to remember to ask,_ she thought with a half-laugh.

The door panel chimed unexpectedly, alerting her that someone had requested her to allow them access to the building. Who that might be at this hour, CJ didn't know, but she didn't suspect it to be anyone good. Flicking on the viewer, she gaped in surprise to see a familiar figure standing on the threshold, soaking wet and wearing a deeply chagrined expression.

The door to apartment 3B swung open as Samus squished her way up the stairs. "Sam? Are you all right? What happened?" CJ asked, leaning through the entryway.

"Looked you up in the directory." The other woman shifted from one foot to the other, though whether it was from cold or nervousness, CJ couldn't determine. "Uh, by any chance is that couch offer still open?"

"Of course. Come on in. Jesus, you're drenched – you'll catch your death of pneumonia out there, it's a wonder you haven't already. Sorry it's a bit scronky in here - I didn't know you were coming, else I'd have straightened up. One of these weekends I need to set aside for field day..."

CJ's two distinctive turns of phrase immediately piqued Samus' interest. Most people would have referred to the apartment as "messy" and the remedy as "cleaning up" or something similar. "Nice place," she commented, surveying her surroundings. By her own standards of housekeeping, the apartment was immaculate, with only the occasional bit of clutter - a pair of shoes and a rag on the floor near the table, a plate and a few pots in the sink, a rumpled throw blanket on the sofa - to indicate the presence of an inhabitant. The space itself was small but highly functional, consisting of a living area, a kitchen with a dining nook, and a hallway leading back to what she presumed was a bedroom and bath.

Her attention was broken a second later as a fluffy towel and a sweatsuit, gray cotton bearing the Defense Forces shield on the chest and left leg, hit her in the face. "Go get out of those wet things. Head's down the hall on your right. I'm a little smaller than you but those should fit okay. If you want to take a shower, go ahead and use my stuff."

Samus couldn't help but burst into laughter, overwhelmed by CJ's take-charge version of the mother hen response. "Are you always this bossy?"

"I prefer to think of it as motivated. Go."

Shaking her head in amusement, Samus did as she'd been told, wondering just what kind of a fix she had managed to get herself into and whether the gunfight at the StarTel might have been preferable.

When Samus returned ten minutes later, she found a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup sitting on the table, which had been cleared off and wiped down. "Sorry, veggie was all I had," CJ said apologetically. "I usually don't go shopping till the weekend. I know you're supposed to have chicken noodle for colds, but..."

"No, vegetable is just fine, thank you," Samus interjected. Poultry disagreed with her stomach even worse than oatmeal. Changing the subject quickly, she said, "I'm sorry about barging in on you like this. I tried to find another hotel, but everything's booked solid."

"Parents' Weekend," CJ agreed. "I should have warned you. Campus goes nuts like that three times a year: first semester move-in, final semester move-out, and Parents'. It's the only time the hotels make any money."

"Just my luck," Samus replied, with an ironic smirk.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Samus applying herself to her meal and CJ sitting back to let her eat in peace. Finally the hunter looked up from her empty bowl. "So, you're a Marine, eh?"

"How'd you come up with that?" CJ asked, with a half-smile.

"Well, your friend over at Syntronics described you as 'an old service buddy,' but I didn't figure out what branch until just now." Samus shrugged, ticking off points on her left hand. "Little things all add up. Your hair's cut exactly at your collar. Your shoes over there are spit-shined, and apparently you just redid them earlier tonight because I can still smell the polish. The way you walk – your stride and pace are perfect quick-time. The way you talk - I don't know any civilian who'd call housecleaning a 'field day,' or a bathroom break a 'head call.' I'm also going to guess that you're not the only serviceperson in your family. You make Navy-style coffee, but you said you learned it from your father, not from your own service."

"Guilty on all counts," CJ admitted. "Electronic warfare detachment, 1/5 MEU. And yes, I'm a Fleet brat. Dad was a Colonial Marine and stayed on after the UEC's military merged into the Defense Forces. He really got in on the ground floor - a good chunk of the various forces' commissioned officers and NCOs quit outright rather than get amalgamated, and then came the Two Percent purge, so he shot right up the ranks, went from staff sergeant to sergeant major in ten years. He just took mandatory retirement last year. After fifty years, they ran out of medals and promotions to give him."

"Good for him," Samus replied. "Pity more people didn't follow his lead. The Forces had a hell of a manpower gap for a while - they're still not entirely over it."

CJ nodded enthusiastically at that. "Tell me about it. Anyway, my younger brother's in right now. He's an engineer's mate on the GFS _Perseus_. He just made petty officer third a few months ago, so we've all been busting on him about being a big bad NCO. Of course, Dad's been busting on him all along for joining the Navy, but that's a career Marine for you."

Samus laughed a bit, "He's not one of those 'Don't call me sir--'"

"--I work for a living," CJ finished the sentence for her, imitating a gruff drill instructor's bark. In her normal voice, she continued, "To us, he was always Sir, and that was the only place he tolerated it, at home. Mom and his Marine buddies call him by name; everywhere else, he's Sergeant Major Donovan."

"He sounds like quite a tough individual," Samus said carefully.

"I guess the best way to describe Dad is 'Old Corps,'" CJ replied, with a thoughtful expression. "Lean, mean, bleeds olive green, has an eagle and star carved into his heart, firmly believes that everything you'll ever need in life is Corps issued equipment, knows every filthy word in seventeen languages, can tell a war story like nobody else, harder than armor plate, takes no bull from anybody, completely and unabashedly un-politically correct, but hands-down the guy you want at your back when the shit hits the fan."

"And what about you? Surely you have a few good war stories to tell."

"Eh, a few, and they're nothing that good. Riot control on Higa III. Put down a guerrilla uprising on Satori. The usual mishmash of anti-piracy operations. I never got to go to any of the big dances - Tau Ceti was way before my time, and then we were tied up with training exercises during the First Zebes Incident. I would've killed to have been there."

A glimpse of old hurt flickered in Samus' eyes at the other woman's mention of Zebes, but she forced it away. "Sounds like you enjoyed it. What made you leave?"

CJ shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee. "Advancement, mostly. Command slots for electronic specialties don't open up that fast, and I didn't want to be a console driver all my career. The rest of it was personal issues with my CO. We had a bunch of damned Two Percenters in our unit, and he refused to do anything about 'em. I'm sorry, I just don't know why people tolerate that shit. I sure don't."

"Really," Samus said, keeping her voice carefully even. The so-called "Two Percent Policy" banned aliens and transgenics – officially, those with greater than two percent non-Standard Human genetic code – from serving in the Federation armed forces. Allegedly the policy promoted "uniform standards of serviceperson capability and unit cohesion"; more cynical observers wondered if it simply ensured the dominance of Standard Humans in galactic affairs. Much like the "don't ask, don't tell" policies of the ancient era, most commanders winked at it, but every year, the GFDF lost hundreds of highly qualified servicepeople to routine medical care, as practically every condition that wasn't a trauma merited a genetic screen for co-morbidities and medication compatibilities. "Why do you think that? It's not their fault they are the way they are. If they want to serve, why not let them?"

"Easy for you to say," CJ countered. "Anything goes if you're a bounty hunter or a PMC. Nobody gives a shit if you've got three heads and can shoot fireballs from your eyes, as long as you get the job done. That's fine for you, but we have _standards._ Two Percenters are not standard. Besides, they're bad for morale, and they're worse for unit efficiency. It always starts small - you shove some of your task pile across the passageway to Corporal Joe Twopercent because hey, he's got a modded brain, he thinks twice as fast as you anyway. Soon everyone starts doing it, and then when the guy either gets caught or goes on sick call, the whole unit goes to shit because nobody knows how to do their own work anymore. And finally, you can't trust 'em in combat. If I'm in a foxhole somewhere and I've got an alien or a transgenic next to me, I don't know that he thinks the same way as me, or that he's got the same dedication to the mission as I do. That makes him a liability to me, and me a liability to my unit, and so on up the line. It only takes one snake in the woodpile to contaminate an entire command structure. Not acceptable."

"I see," Samus replied evenly. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if she should say anything about her own genetic status, but decided against it. Clearly CJ harbored a fairly serious xenophobic streak, and there was no sense in angering the person who held Adam's life at stake. "I think we'll just agree to disagree on that topic."

"Hey, I'm positively open-minded as far as those people are concerned - my dad thinks they all ought to be rounded up and dumped out the airlock," CJ laughed. "Don't get me wrong, I have friends and colleagues who are aliens; they're nice people and all, but they should not be in the forces. Not now, not ever. Period."

Samus just shrugged in reply. "So, was that the 'top-notch security' you mentioned yesterday?" she quipped, pointing to a locked metal case atop the sofa end table.

CJ nodded in reply. "My old sidearm. Paid her off when I left active duty. Here." With a quick series of motions, she opened the case, removed the battery and the magazine, and then handed the inactivated gun to Samus. The weapon was nothing special, a standard issue M9B3 coil pistol, but the polished brilliance of the metalwork, the oil-finished wooden grips and the carefully engraved eagle and star emblem and "1LT DONOVAN 1/5 EWD – PFM" on the backstrap indicated that this was no ordinary piece, but a much beloved companion.

"Nicely maintained. You shoot often?" _Talk guns to a jarhead and you'll be their best friend for life,_ she thought with a mental chuckle.

"There's a public range I go to in Inkari, about twenty minutes north of here on the magrail. I'm there minimum once a week, and sometimes if I've had a completely crap day I'll go down and bust a few boxes after work. The veteran's tag is really nice for that. The guys at the range all see the big stamp on my owner card and fall all over themselves to get me trigger time."

Samus cracked a half-smile and a nod at CJ's mention of the veteran's weapon permit. Under Federal law, any honorably discharged veteran of the armed forces was entitled to own one firearm for personal use. "They offered me one of those when I left the Police, but I went for a concealed-carry license instead. Federally certified, of course."

CJ whistled appreciatively. "Damn, you've got a Fed tag? Don't I wish. Those are next to impossible to get, though - do you have dirty pictures of the Prime Minister or something?"

Samus replied with a snort of laughter. "It's not quite so bad as all that. Yeah, they make you pass a written and a practical exam, but that's no big deal. Mostly it's the bureaucracy and B.S. that scares people off. For what I do, though, it's worth it. Any given job could take me to half a dozen planets or space stations, and frankly, I haven't the time or the inclination to mess around with a different license for every place I go. Then too, it saves on the legal foul-ups. The absolute last thing I'd need would be to wind up in lock-up on some hicksville planet because the local constabulary caught me carrying concealed without one of their permits."

"Too true," CJ agreed, with a sage nod.

Samus handed the pistol back to its owner. "I have to ask, though: what's a PFM? I know one way to translate that acronym, but I'm fairly sure you wouldn't ascribe it to yourself..."

CJ burst out laughing at the hunter's comment. "No, it's probably not what you're thinking. PFM is the art of taking the enemy's beautiful, well-managed, well-secured tactical net and your own howling vortex of chaos, and swapping them out in five seconds flat without anyone knowing you lifted a finger. In other words, Pure Freaking Magic." Replacing the battery and magazine, she said, "And on that note, I am going to hit the rack. Give me two minutes to put this away and I'll get you clean sheets and a pillow."

Much later, with the lights turned out and the doors all locked for the night, CJ wandered through the apartment, assuring herself that all was secure. She paused in the living room, as her ears alerted her to another presence there. Samus was huddled on the sofa bed, her frame curled into an improbably tiny fetal ball, and she was twitching in her sleep, though whether it was from cold or a dream, the researcher couldn't determine.

_A riddle within an enigma_, she thought, heading to the linen closet for an extra blanket, which she draped carefully over the sleeping woman's form. On impulse, she brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "Sweet dreams," she whispered before retiring for the night.

* * *

Author's Notes: Sorry about the ridiculously late chapter. All I can say is, holidays will do that to you. With any luck at all, I'll be able to get back to a slightly more frequent update schedule in the future.

Anyway, back to the story: Things are spooling up in a big way now that CJ and Samus are getting somewhere with Adam's recovery. Cardinal makes another appearance, and Admiral Renard's inner control freak is showing big-time.

_Galaxy Squad_ is meant to be this universe's version of _Star Trek: The Original Series_: a cheeseball sci-fi show, which would long since have fallen into cultural irrelevance if not for its rabid fan base. I goofed around with the idea once before in a previous story, and liked it enough to repeat it here. Samus' hotel situation parallels my classmates' experiences trying to find accommodations for parental visits in my university days. Unless your university is located in a major city, you'll be lucky to find two or three hotels within any reasonable distance of campus. The eagle and star emblem of the GFMC comes from _MP2: Echoes._ (It's the emblem that appears over all the Bravo Squad Marines' log entries.)

To those of you who've stuck around this long, thank you for your patience, and to all of you, thanks for reading!

_Edited 1/13: the series bible is moving full-time to DeviantArt. This is two updates in a row that I've noticed minimal traffic and no reviews for new chapters, and I suspect it has a lot to do with the series bible always taking over the "most recent chapter" position on e-mailed story alerts. So, I'm taking the bible down for right now. If I can figure out a way to get it past the FF Net fictional-content requirements, I'll give it its own posting; otherwise, I'll add it back at the end of the story._


	7. The Fire and the Fury, Part 1

Chapter 7: The Fire and the Fury, Part 1

_Soundtrack: "Tempest," Yoko Kanno, from the Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society album._

* * *

Samus awoke slowly, unsure of her surroundings. The room was dim and quiet, and the bed was far more comfortable than she remembered it being; so much so that she could easily drift back off again--

_Oh, right. I'm not at that hotel anymore. _

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, surveying the room with an appraising gaze. Tendrils of daylight filtered through the blinds, and the clock on the holovid display mounted to the wall read 0645. As far as she knew, she was alone. She rolled out of the bed, heading toward the kitchen, and the scent of coffee tickled her nose. A paranoid voice at the back of her mind immediately conjured up all kinds of nefarious schemes - she had been drugged, kidnapped, the room was booby-trapped, a squad of assassins lay in wait - but a quick look around the apartment put paid to all those notions.

"Hello? CJ?"

No one answered her. Her clothing, freshly laundered and neatly folded, sat stacked on the kitchen table, topped by a note. Samus picked it up, scanning it briefly.

_"Morning Sam-- Tried to wake you, you were dead to world. Figured you needed the sleep, so decided to go in early. Extra toothbrush, soap and stuff is in bathroom. Your clothes are all washed. Coffee is in thermal jug on counter, help yourself to anything in fridge. Directions to campus on back of this note. See you at the lab. -CJD 01.13 0530"_

_So I hired a computer geek and I got an ex-Marine mother hen. Who would have thought?_ Shaking her head in amusement, she stumbled off toward the shower.

* * *

Traffic was heavy as Samus drove into the Barnard district, and finally grew completely gridlocked as she neared the south end of campus, where the psychology and engineering departments were housed. _What the hell?_ she thought, pulling her vehicle over to a nearby side alley and hopping out to survey the scene.

A quick look up the road revealed the cause of the blockage. Half a dozen fire, police and EMS vehicles were parked along the access road, completely barricading the area from both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Scores of gawkers had clustered around the scene, pointing and staring at the disaster in progress. A campus security cordon ringed the affected site: the computer science building. The raw morning air carried the acrid chemical stench of smoke, and several floors' worth of windows were broken out, the remains of the panes jutting from their frames like jagged teeth.

"This can't be good," Samus muttered, as she pushed her way through the crowd. Grabbing the nearest security officer, she demanded, "What happened?"

"Electrical fire. Took out most of the fifth floor. Looks like it might have started in one of the computer labs." The man shook his head, no doubt mourning the foolishness of those who would leave their electronics plugged in unsupervised. "Lucky no one was supposed to be here this early."

That last sentence struck an unpleasant chill into Samus' nerves. The AI lab was on the fifth floor, and she knew at least one person who _would_ have been there at the early hour. "I need to get up there."

"Ma'am, that's an active crime scene. I can't let you--"

"I'm a fugitive recovery agent, and I used to be a Federation Police officer," Samus cut him off. "I know how to behave at a crime scene. I'm asking you to let me up there because I think this fire might have to do with a case I'm working, and I also think a colleague of mine might have been in the building this morning."

"A Fed? No shit." The campus officer sighed, happy to defer to a more experienced investigator. "Just watch your step. The fire brigade said the fire's out, but they haven't checked the structure. Floors and ceilings might be unstable."

Samus brushed past him, walking rapidly beyond the scene barrier and into the building, climbing the stairs two at a time. On the fifth floor, the reek of fire retardant foam, burned plastic and circuitry nearly gagged her, as she picked her way through the ruins toward what must have been the fire's point of origin. The floor and everything it contained had been utterly destroyed; nothing but structural beams and a few haphazardly spaced sheets of wall paneling remained.

"Can I help you?" a voice said behind her, accompanied by grinding, mechanical footfalls. Turning to look, Samus saw a figure in a soot-smeared, heavily insulated suit of powered armor, colored fluorescent yellow and equipped with a pair of helmet-mounted searchlights and an emergency flasher. "Mandeville Fire Rescue" was emblazoned across the helmet, leaving no doubt as to the wearer's profession.

"I'm a fugitive agent, and I have an interest in this case," Samus replied. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"Arson investigator's still en route, but on the face of it, it just looks like your basic electrical fire. Point of origin was that lab space over there - I'm told it was an AI lab. Some device's power supply shorted, caught, and that was all she wrote. We got here three minutes after the automated alarms went off, and most of the floor was already involved."

Samus' expression hardened at the firefighter's description of the blaze. No building space she knew of would burn to ashes within three minutes unless it had been helped to do so. "Mind if I have a look?"

"Look if you like," the firefighter replied. "Just don't touch anything. 'Sides, we've already got one civilian up here, and that's enough liability as it is." He pointed to a location a few meters within the office area, where a familiar form squatted in the wreckage, clutching a small object in both hands.

Keeping her footsteps loud enough to be easily audible, Samus carefully walked up behind the other woman. "What happened?" she asked, in a quiet tone.

CJ did not respond, staring despondently at the piece of charred metal she held. Part of the soot had been wiped away, revealing an AI unit's registry plate beneath.

_Frank in the Tank._

"I--" Samus paused, fumbling for a proper response. "I'm sorry for your loss."

CJ blinked a few times, sniffling. "Should have been me," she said in a dull voice. "Went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Came back, building was on fire. Ten minutes either way it'd have been me." Pointing to the registry plate, she continued, "He would have boiled to death in his own containment chamber. At least any other sentient being would have the luxury of asphyxiating first. He would have seen, heard, felt everything."

Samus just nodded in reply, as sensory memory reminded her of more than a few trips to hells like Norfair, Magmoor and Bryyo.

"Nobody deserves to go that way, Sam. Nobody."

With a ragged noise somewhere between a cough and a sob, CJ threw herself at Samus, burying her head in the other woman's shoulder as she shook with silent grief. Samus froze instantly at the contact, remaining perfectly still even as CJ's arms wound around her, hands clenching the back of her shirt. Intellectually she knew that many people craved physical comfort in times of distress, but the knowledge didn't lessen her discomfort or her sense of helplessness one bit.

"CJ, listen to me very carefully," she finally said, disentangling herself from the scientist's embrace and placing both hands firmly on her shoulders. "I swear to you I am going to find the people who did this, and make them pay. But right now, I need you to focus. When you came to lab this morning, did you notice anything unusual?"

CJ took several deep, gulping breaths. "Okay. Give... just give me a minute, let me try to-- let me think, let me get a handle on it."

Samus waited patiently for CJ to calm down, using the time to order her own thoughts.

"I don't think there was anything weird. I'm trying to walk through the lab in my head. I came in, turned on the equipment, said hi to Frank, and made a pot of coffee. Checked my messages, got some form work done. Decided to go get some chow. Locked the lab and headed for the caf. That's it."

"And did you see anyone or anything out of place?"

"I don't think... the lab was just like I left it, there was nobody on the elevator, nobody on the floor..."

The hunter's expression remained impassive, despite the furious churning of her mind. "CJ, look at me. I need you to focus. Last question: Can you think of anyone who would want to do something like this to you? Any enemies, any academic rivals, anyone at all?"

CJ shook her head no. Her hands shook minutely, and she was breathing in quick, shallow gasps.

"All right, that's enough for right now," Samus interrupted, helping the scientist to her feet and propelling her toward the stairwell. The last thing she needed was to have to carry her out of the building if she fainted or became ill. "Let's get you out of here. I think the police will want to talk to you, and then I'm going to start doing my own investigating. You should go home and rest."

CJ did not resist as they exited the ruins.

* * *

It must have been a cultural archetype, Samus thought, that no matter where you went in the galaxy, some establishments could always be identified at a moment's glance. Whether you were on Earth or Egenon, it didn't matter: hospitals always sported a monochrome design in whatever color that culture assigned to cleanliness, government facilities were always ostentatiously over-built, and police stations were always dingy, cramped and smelled of bad coffee. The Mandeville Police Department, located about a kilometer from campus in the city center, followed the trope to perfection.

The desk sergeant, an overweight, pasty-faced woman whose name tag read "M. Dawkins," motioned her forward. "Next."

Samus put on a professional smile. "I need to talk to whoever is the detective in charge of the Barnard University fire this morning."

Sergeant Dawkins turned a disdainful glare on her. "Who're you?"

"My name is Samus Aran. I'm a fugitive recovery agent, and I'm working the case on a private contract." It wasn't entirely falsehood; she _had_ promised to investigate the case on CJ's behalf.

The desk officer snorted disbelievingly. "Pfft, good one, lady. Yeah, you're Samus Aran and I'm the Prime Minister. Now d'ya wanna own up to your little practical joke and get the hell out, or d'ya want me to arrest you for obstruction of justice?"

'I've got a better idea," Samus retorted. "How about you look me up in the system and give me my information before I lodge a complaint with your CO? Here, I'll even make it easy on you: it's Class A, registry number 13576. You just tell me when you want a hand scan."

Sergeant Dawkins snarled something unintelligible under her breath, and then threw a reader across the desk, which Samus palmprinted left-handed. After a few moments' fiddling with her computer, the sergeant let out a strangled gulp. "Uh, I... oh my. Ms. Aran, I'm so sorry. I had no idea... you see, we get a lot of college kids in here, uh, you know, playing pranks and so forth, and well, you just don't quite expect to see someone like you in a place like this, especially without your, uh, you know..."

"My armor's in the shop, and they couldn't give me a loaner," Samus cracked, even as she wondered what candy box this woman had gotten her shield from. "I'm kind of in a hurry, so if you could just point me in the right direction--"

Sergeant Dawkins shook her head. "Sorry, can't help ya."

"What do you mean, you can't help me?" Samus replied, the edge slipping back into her voice.

"We can only release information if there's an active contract associated with your case, and I'm seeing no such thing in the system." The officer shrugged apologetically. "Now, if your employer wants to publish the contract, that's different, but until then--"

"Look, I'm not asking for state secrets here," Samus shot back, leaning across the desk. "I only want to know the name of the officer who owns the Barnard fire case. That's all."

"And I told you I can't release--"

"I'll get it from here, Sarge. I might be able to help ya," a new voice cut in behind them. Samus turned to see a nondescript-looking man in a rather shabby black sport coat and equally shapeless, wrinkled gray trousers. "I'm Lieutenant Sanderson, I head up the Priority Case Squad. Step into my office a moment, please? Get ya a cup of coffee?"

Coffee was the last thing on Samus' mind at the moment, particularly the noxious brew that passed for it in the average police station, but she nodded in the affirmative anyway. There were some social rituals even she recognized. "Black, please. Thank you."

Lieutenant Sanderson retrieved two disposable cups from the stack next to his coffee maker, pouring each full and adding generous helpings of sweetener and creamer to one cup. "Here, have a seat," he said, handing Samus the unadulterated cup as he gestured toward his office. "I understand you've got a line on that business at Barnard. Care to tell me how the galaxy's most famous bounty hunter gets contracted to work on a lab fire at some second-string engineering school in the ass end of the back of beyond?"

Samus thought about her answer for several seconds, using her coffee cup as a distraction. The beverage was every bit as bad as she'd feared and worse. "I think the fire might have started because of me, not the other way around," she finally said. "I contracted several of the Barnard faculty to work on a special project involving artificial intelligence. As soon as we started making progress, the lab caught fire. The lead researcher asked me to look into it, and so here I am."

"So you don't think the fire was an accident." Off Samus' disgusted pursed-lip expression, Sanderson replied, "Neither do I. Problem is, my hands are tied. I have a case backlog as long as my arm, and the fire brigade's all over my ass to call this case an equipment accident and close it down. And worse, I can't pass it off to you, as much as I'd like to, because we have departmental regulations about private lines. We're only allowed to disclose to FRAs if the contract's been made public. So the reasoning goes, any Joe or Jane could walk in here, claim to be a bounty hunter and get any data on any case they wanted, just by saying they'd been hired on a private contract. You can see where the CYA-ism comes into play."

Samus understood the officer's dilemma, but she didn't like it in the slightest. "So that's it, then? We all know it's foul play, but you just let the case slide because you're afraid of red tape?"

Sanderson sighed, chugging down his entire cup of coffee in one extended gulp. "I'll make you a deal. I can't let you have access to the case file, but we do have the building security logs and a few items of physical evidence. I can make copies for you. Understand, though, that you did not get them here."

"That won't be a problem."

"I hoped you'd say that." Sanderson pulled a keyboard out of his desk drawer, entering a rapid series of commands. After a few moments, a nearby notepad began flashing, its screen indicating a completed data transfer. He handed the pad to Samus, who took it and stowed it in the thigh pocket of her trousers. "There's a copy of my contact file on that pad as well. If you need anything, don't hesitate to call. Thank you."

"I haven't done anything yet, I should be the one thanking you," Samus pointed out.

The lieutenant began to chuckle softly, shaking his head. He rolled up his left sleeve to the mid-forearm, revealing a faded Federation Police tattoo, the star and shield surmounting a scroll reading _'Fidelitas Maximus Virtuti Est.'_ "I used to be a Fed, too. 75th District under Yang. One of my first cases was a slave ring in the Sagittarius Sector. You might not remember, it was damn near fifteen years ago... anyway, we were set to raid their main base, and then you and that little special ops gang you used to run with got in under our noses."

"I remember," Samus said quietly. The base had been booby-trapped, packed with enough explosives to send both the police operatives and the slavers' sentient cargo into the intergalactic void. Only quick thinking on the part of Adam and another officer had saved them from the bombs, and then the slavers returned with heavy firepower. Their squad had been hard pressed to prevail; a conventionally equipped unit would have simply been annihilated.

"I figure you saved my life that day. I always promised myself if I got the chance, I'd say thank you." Sanderson re-fastened his sleeve, with a lopsided smile. "Anyway. You'd better get going before Sergeant Sledge out there decides to strangle you with that red tape."

Samus' reply was a nod and a smile as she disposed of her coffee cup and headed for the door.

* * *

"Chow's here," Samus said, hefting two carry-out bags as CJ opened the apartment door. "I stopped by a noodle place on my way back from the cop shop. There's one veg and one mixed fry - I hope that's okay."

"Fine," the scientist said softly. "I'm not hungry."

"You should eat something anyway," the hunter countered, setting the bags on the kitchen table. "I'm going to take a guess and say you haven't eaten since this morning. Low blood sugar isn't going to solve anything except make you feel worse. As Adam used to say, nothing great was ever accomplished without glucose."

CJ snickered half-heartedly at that, pulling open a bag and removing the mixed noodle container from within. "Sounds like Adam was a smart guy."

"The best I've ever known," Samus replied softly, digging into her own container of vegetables. "So how did the interview go?"

"I'm here at least, so they must not think I did it," CJ pointed out, which earned a snort of amusement from Samus. "They just asked me the same stuff you did, only in more detail. I still don't know who would want to do this to me or to my lab."

"I've been working on that myself," Samus replied, spearing a forkful of stir-fried greens. "I have a few leads, but nothing concrete as of yet. I'm more concerned about Adam. I highly doubt the Feds are going to give me another copy of his memory store, assuming another such fire hasn't already occurred out at Valerian, and even if they did, we have no analysis equipment to do anything with it." With an uncomfortable shrug, she continued, "I owe you an apology, CJ. It never occurred to me that someone would target your lab to get to me. If you want to back away, I understand. No hard feelings."

"No, I'll still stay on, for what little help I'll be without my equipment. At the very least, I can write up my final report saying that I don't think Adam was rogue. As for the lab, I'm getting past it. 95% of it was university property anyway, and they have insurance. All my data's backed up offsite. The only really irreplaceable thing was Frank." CJ looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged, her expression indicating that the subject was closed. "What are you going to do now?"

"First, go back to Valerian and get my armor - my flight leaves later tonight - and then on to Aliehs III for my ship. After that, start chasing down leads and hope that one of them pans out in time to save Adam from the electronic trash can."

CJ's response was a noncommittal hum. "So tell me about yourself," she said bluntly.

Caught off guard, Samus grunted, "Huh?"

"I, uh, I've been working with you for three days now and I know practically nothing about you. You're a bounty hunter, you're really famous though you'd rather not be, you're really cranky when people try to tell you what to do, and you're apparently going to take on the galaxy to save an allegedly twisted AI. Other than that, I've got nothing."

"Well, you've got about three-quarters of the story right there," Samus replied diffidently. "I'm originally from a little colony world in the Bootes Sector. Moved around a lot when I was little."

"Military brat too, then, huh?" CJ chuckled, with a weak smile. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"Not quite," Samus said. "My father was part of the colonial militia like every other able adult, but otherwise no, we weren't military. Besides, both my parents died when I was very young."

"Who raised you, then? Grandparents? Foster home?"

Samus shook her head no. "You'd be too young to remember, but you might have heard about it in the Forces... are you familiar with a place called K-2L at all?"

CJ thought about that for a moment. "Vaguely. It was a UEC holding before the unification. I want to say there might've been some kind of accident or disaster, and a whole bunch of people died..."

"It was a disaster, all right," Samus replied, a bitter twist to the corners of her mouth. "Space Pirates raided the colony in 2003. I was the only survivor. There are still times when I think I shouldn't have."

"Oh." CJ fell silent for several seconds. "How'd you survive? Someone had to have rescued you."

"I was picked up by a ship crewed by a pair of Chozo. They took me back to their home on Zebes, and raised me as one of their own."

"Uh, Sam, that's... there's, uh, no polite way to, er, to say this..." CJ stammered. "I think..."

"You think I'm either mistaken or lying," Samus finished. "Not the first time I've heard that, but I assure you it's true."

CJ shook her head, unbelieving. "But that's just not _possible._ The Chozo went extinct ages ago. The last time anyone ever even heard from them was for the Aurora program back in '06. There... there's just no way. For one thing, you're way too young."

"How old do you think I am?" Samus asked with a smirk. "Be honest, I won't be offended."

"You've got to be younger than me. 25, maybe 27 at the outside."

"I'm flattered," the hunter laughed. "31. Or at least, that's what the official records say. I remember being three at the time of... when it happened, which matches that timeframe." She punctuated that last sentence with a shrug, clearly indicating that she didn't want to dwell on the topic any longer than strictly necessary. "Anyway, the last handful of Chozo on Zebes - and you're right, they were functionally extinct, there were only a dozen or so alive, and none under the age of 500 - took me in. Apparently they had a prophecy, that a child with no nest and no wings would become the last Defender--"

CJ added, "And you were an orphan - no home, so a bird's nest would be its home, and no wings obviously, because you're human. So they figured you fit the bill."

"Right. So, they raised me from the start to fit their prophecy. Advanced martial arts, marksmanship, stealth and fieldcraft, so forth. And my armor, of course. Mostly though, I remember tons and tons of ethics. The whole concept of the Defenders in Chozo society... they're very much real-life superheroes, figures of legend. Superbly trained, armed, armored, and utterly untouchable. To them, all the firepower in the world meant nothing if the mind and hand wielding it couldn't be guaranteed of always doing the right thing. Take for example the concept of isolation. The Chozo thought that if their super-warriors were allowed to develop friendships, romances, attachments of any kind, they'd head right down the path to corruption - and good bloody luck taking down a rogue Defender. So, the whole system was designed never to allow a Defender even the chance to fall. Each Defender lived alone - either in a remote monastery on an uninhabited planet, or aboard his or her spaceship - and they could never visit the same planet or associate with the same person twice."

"But you're a Defender, and you're obviously attached to Adam," CJ pointed out quietly. "And I'd be willing to bet you've been to lots of planets and seen lots of people more than twice."

"True," Samus replied, with a slightly rueful smile. "The latter is just force of expedience. There's only one of me, and lots and lots of galaxy to guard. Adam... that was a very special situation."

"Were you two... uh, you know?"

"Lovers? No. Adam was just about old enough to be my father, and in a very real sense, that's exactly what he was to me: the human father I never really had. He was the one who got my head on straight regarding the Forces, and the one who got me into my current line of work."

"Hey, I meant to ask you about that," CJ queried, somewhat unsure of herself as her next question would take her onto even more explosive territory. "You were only in the Feds for a year and change?"

"I medicaled out," Samus replied, and this time her expression was much more serious.

"Medical? What happened, did you get shot up or something?" CJ began to say, and then bit down furiously on her tongue. _Stupid, stupid, you've gone and stepped on another one!_ she castigated herself mentally.

"That was Adam's one great gift to me," Samus said quietly, and if she took offense to the question, she gave no sign of it. "You wouldn't know it to see me as a hunter, but I was a fairly complete failure as a police officer. Sure, I could run faster, shoot straighter and haul in more bad guys than anyone in my squad, but I didn't particularly care for the bureaucracy and I had a major problem with stupidity up the chain of command, and we all know how well that goes over in the Forces. I got bounced around by a few COs – uniform, plainclothes, back to uniform, did really well in narcotics for a while, and then some skeever claimed I roughed him up, so it was back to uniform again. Anyway, I wound up in Adam's unit kind of by default – he had this joint Navy/Police special operations squad, and a lot of brass saw it as a dumping ground for the hard cases and the chronic screwups. After a few months or so, I'd cleaned up my act, but Adam had figured out that I'd do a lot better as a solo operator, and he made me a deal. He told me that if I could keep my nose clean till my next physical evaluation, he'd get me out. I did, and when I went through, he made sure they ran a genetic screen on me. Of course, it came up 97% Standard Human and 3% Chozo genetic modifications, just like he knew it would..."

"And they gave you a Two Percent separation," CJ finished.

"Right. Once I got my hunter's license, I volunteered to handle the Feds' black work and special operations, free of charge, for the remaining years of my service obligation. As a matter of fact, the job on Zebes was the first time they actually had to pay me."

"Two Percent," CJ repeated, and this time the anger and disgust were plainly visible on her face. "All this time. A freaking Two Percenter."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Samus replied, slightly confused. "I thought you were okay with transgenics. You said you had non-human friends. What's the problem?"

_"You,_ that's the problem," CJ snarled, slapping her hands flat on the table. Her fork, knocked loose by the impact, tipped out of the takeout container to clatter on the table's surface. "You go around letting the universe think you're a normal human – Jesus, _I_ thought you were a human! I let you stay in my home, called you my friend! And to find out you played the same dirty game on the Police just takes the cake. You're disgusting. You and your whole filthy kind. Dad's right – you all ought to be spaced."

Samus found herself breathing slowly and deeply, trying to stave off the urge to swing at the scientist. "If that's really what you think, then I am deeply sorry that I misjudged you so badly," she said, her voice positively glacial. "And if not, then you need to grow the hell up. I don't care if your father was the Prime Minister, he doesn't corner the market on life experience, and his opinions sure as hell don't give you the right to go spewing hate on people who never did a thing against you."

"It's not just him. The Corps says the same thing. You're a menace to good order and discipline. It's right there in the uniform justice code."

"Oh, right, your precious Marine Corps," Samus shot back. "Now there's a bastion of mental stability. Let me tell you something, I've worked with Marines for the last fifteen years. I know your Marines inside and out, and I can count on one hand the number of them who actually had a damn clue how the universe works. The rest were angry little boys and girls playing soldier, messing with deadly toys and other people's lives."

In an instant, CJ was on her feet, breathing loudly and rapidly through her nose. "Go to hell," she snarled. "You're the one who doesn't have a clue about the universe. You act like the big bad bounty hunter while everyone else does your dirty work, everyone else takes the hits for you. Well, not me. I'm done."

"That's your prerogative," Samus replied, in a deadly even tone. "I would have thought you'd have the intellectual capacity to recognize when your worldview doesn't fit the evidence, but apparently I was wrong. I guess you learn something new every day. Well, some of us do, at least."

With a furious roar, CJ charged at Samus, arm raised to throw a hammer-fist, but just as soon as the hunter's form appeared within her striking range, her world blurred out and turned upside down, as the air fled her lungs with a dull 'whoomp.' Gasping, she just barely recognized the sensation of a fist under her sternum before she hit the floor face-first, propelled by Samus' knee in her back. Coughing and snarling a nonstop string of profanities, she tried to struggle free, but the vise grip on her right forearm quickly disabused her of that notion – any further movement in that direction would result in either a dislocation or a fracture.

"Are you done?" Samus asked calmly. She didn't even sound out of breath.

CJ tried to twist away and out from under the pin, but only received a fresh dose of pain for her trouble, as the hunter's kneecap ground forcefully into her spine, accompanied by a warning tug on her captive arm.

"Are you _done?_"

It galled her intensely to admit defeat, but the scientist finally gave a short nod of the head.

Samus abruptly let CJ up, regarding her with the same cold, murderous gaze she might have turned on a Space Pirate. "Then it seems we have nothing further to discuss. I have a flight to catch, but I'll be back in three local days to pick up your report." Turning to leave, she paused for just a second. "I wish I could say I enjoyed the experience, but you certainly taught me a great deal. Thank you."

* * *

_"Welcome to GFB Valerian Station. All visitors, please report to Federation Customs with inoculation papers before proceeding. Crewmembers, please have your identification available for display." _The welcome message repeated itself in four other languages as Samus and three dozen other arrivals stepped through the docking hatch into the cavernous launch bay.

"Muh- mi- Ms. Aran?" The voice, delivered in a squeaking tenor, stopped Samus in her tracks. As she turned to look for the source, her eyes confirmed what her ears had suspected: the speaker was a painfully young-looking crewman third class, complete with adolescent acne and razor abrasions. He snapped off a jerky salute as she approached. "Uh, hi, uh, w-we-welcome to uh--"

"Don't rupture yourself, kid," Samus replied sardonically. "I assume you're my escort?"

"Uh, um, yeah, I-- uh, I'm suh- supposed to t-t-take y-you d-d-down to eh-en-Engineering," the boy stuttered. "Ri-right this w-w-way."

_No wonder the galaxy's doomed if this is what's going to protect it,_ Samus thought as they walked through the maze of corridors toward the station's massive engineering bays.

"That's all, Jones," another man said, this one wearing a grimy coverall and a full lieutenant's rank insignia, as the two of them arrived within the number three engineering space. "Samus, welcome aboard. I'm Lieutenant Bauer, CO of the Special Engineering Division here at Valerian. Have a pleasant flight?"

Samus' reply was a noncommittal shrug.

"I apologize it took us so long to get back to you," Bauer said, gesturing for the hunter to follow him as they walked back into the main work bay. A large metal armature, approximately humaniform in shape and draped with a tarpaulin cover, stood in the center of the space. "You gave us a hell of a project, but I think you'll be happy with the results." He gestured to the armature, and a nearby crewman yanked the tarp off, revealing the armature's contents. "Voila."

No answer. The hunter stared at the armature in shock; words had utterly deserted her.

"What do you think?"

The Fusion Suit that Samus had left behind couldn't have borne less resemblance to the suit contained within the armature if it had been rebuilt from scratch. The flexible biomorphous "skin" had been removed in its entirety, and the suit had been completely re-armored, the plates gleaming charcoal gray and polished to a perfect mirror finish. The strange blade-like protrusions on the left forearm and the "mandibles" on the helmet were gone as well, and the visor bore its old familiar wing shape rather than the organic, pointed form it had had before the reconstruction. The helmet and chest plates had been re-finished to a deep shade of scarlet, in a nod to the suit's original coloration.

In a weak voice, Samus managed to splutter out, "What did you do to my armor?"

"The question is, what didn't we do to your armor," Lieutenant Bauer said with a smile. "By the time we got done removing all the X crud and so forth, all that was left was the skeletal components, the gun, the neural interfaces and the energy systems. Poor old thing wouldn't even hold pressure. So, we replaced everything for you."

The engineer began to pace around the suit as though showing off a new vehicle, grinning all the while. "You've got all new armor plate – it's the V3 system, brand-new tech out of Niihama Arsenal. You'll like this, it was reverse engineered from your original Power Suit armor. Three-layer sandwich, alpha-titanium, nanophase ceramic and laminated graphene, plus your usual energy shielding. We have yet to find anything short of light artillery that'll defeat it. You'll still have to watch out for heat and radiation, but then again your old armor was that way too. New combat management system in your helmet; it gives you all the old tactical data you're used to, plus a dedicated broadband link between you and your ship. Whoever's on the other end can see and hear everything exactly as you do, in real time. We repaired all your usual mobility systems – morph ball, grapple, jump boosters and so forth. The gun screwed up when we tried loading out all Advanced Capability missiles, so we went back to your old 255/50 configuration. The ADCAP missiles use the Forces-standard warhead bus, so you can load any kind of warhead you like on 'em – high explosive, dispersion effect munitions, whatever. On beam weapons, you've got pulsed particle, cryocondensed and plasma, just like you've used before. Bombs, same old same old. Color scheme can be changed if you want, but, well, we think it looks pretty sweet as it is."

Samus had to agree that the list of upgrades looked and sounded 'pretty sweet,' but the paranoid corner of her mind had to wonder why a government that had hitherto shown minimal interest in supporting her, and now just might regard her as an enemy, would build her a brand-new engine of destruction and hand her the metaphorical keys. "This is all lovely, but isn't there a catch here somewhere?"

The Engineering lieutenant shrugged, hands out in a gesture of conciliation. "No catch, no strings. My men came up with the idea. They... well, you know how scuttlebutt gets around, and they heard how the brass treated you on this last deployment. They wanted to do something to put it right. Or, as my senior chief put it, 'That lady's out there every day with her ass on the line for our sakes; the very best is no less than she deserves.' Technically this is all volunteer work, too. We requisitioned some of the parts and so forth through the Weapons Bureau, but all the labor was donated - the men came in on their off watches and liberty time to get this back up and running."

"Consider it our way of saying thank you, ma'am," a petty officer first class added.

Samus nodded silently, not trusting her voice to render a proper thank-you to the people who had, in a very real sense, given her back her heart and soul. She hoped that the gratitude in her face and eyes would be enough.

"Why don't you try it on?"

Seven minutes later, clad in the new, pearl black pressure garment the Engineering staff had created for her, Samus approached the storage armature. "You know, I think I liked this thing better when I could wish it on and off," she quipped. "Just like the last time, eh?"

"You got it," Lieutenant Bauer replied. "Buijis, light her up."

The petty officer second class at the control console typed in a few rapid commands, and the suit's power cells came to life with an audible hum. The shoulder guards slid forward and the dorsal plates split approximately halfway down the suit's back, the upper plate with its exhaust ports hinging out and away while the lower segmented plates slid down over themselves to open up the armor's entire back section. On the technician's screen, a set of rapid commands scrolled by.

_**Chozo Battle Suit  
Ver. SA1-4468-VM7-P  
System check initiated...  
ALERT: No user present. Combat functions will start in Standby Mode.  
ALERT: Attach helmet to activate HMD and visor systems.  
System Diagnostics: OK  
Main Computer: Online  
Life Support: Online  
Communications: Online  
Combat Systems: Online, Inactive  
HMD Suite: Online, Inactive  
Visor Systems: Online, Inactive  
Power Beam: Online, Inactive  
Missile Launcher: Online, Inactive  
Space Jump Thrusters: Online  
Speed Booster: Online  
Grapple Beam Launcher: Online  
Morph Ball: Online  
Morph Ball Bomb Module: Online, Inactive  
Power Bomb Generator: Online, Inactive  
Morph Ball Spider Unit: Online**_

"Systems check five by five," Buijis reported. "Ma'am, any time you're ready."

_Don't call me "ma'am," I work for a living,_ Samus thought with a sad mental laugh. Hadn't she had that conversation just the day before? Shaking off the reminiscence, she walked behind the suit, stepping into the leg assemblies and sliding her arms forward into the upper torso. The back plates slid up and sealed themselves with a faint click, and the shoulder guards rotated back to cover the seams. A second later, her face went slack as the suit began re-establishing its connections to her body, wiring itself into her nervous system through junction markers in her spinal cord, hands and arms. Its life support apparatus connected to the central venous port in her chest and a pair of matching renal shunts in her back, shutting down her own digestive system and injecting nutrients and removing byproducts directly through her bloodstream. Within the space of a minute and a half, the armor had ceased to be something Samus wore; it was so tightly integrated to her body that it was impossible to determine where the woman ended and the machine began, and only surgical intervention would separate them.

"Ma'am, you still with us?"

Samus nodded in reply, opening her eyes and looking around the compartment. "So far so good," she mused, as another technician picked up her helmet and locked it onto her head. Inside, the helmet-mounted display lit up in soothing blue, displaying the familiar energy and weapon status readouts, as her ears popped with a hiss of pressurized air.

"Okay, let's start with sensory check. Can you hear me?"

_For once they actually managed not to mess up the sensory systems,_ Samus thought with a mental smirk as Bauer's voice came clearly through her helmet's audio pickups. "Yes," she replied, knowing that they would only hear the inflectionless monotone that was the "voice" of her onboard speech synthesizer. The system had been designed for high speed and language flexibility, but that capability came at the cost of natural-sounding output. She didn't mind sounding like a robot from an ancient sci-fi vid, though. Among other things, the speech synthesizer hid all clues as to the speaker's species and gender, a highly useful perk in her line of work.

Lieutenant Bauer produced a miniature weapons training drone from his work bench. Holding it aloft, he said, "Target." Samus flicked her gaze up to the target and blinked twice, and the arm cannon snapped up to bear on the drone, which now sported a rotating tripartite targeting reticle in her HMD. They repeated the exercise three more times, and then Bauer threw the drone high in the air, drawing his sidearm and firing at the device to knock it back into the air as it fell. "Target and track," he shouted, popping the drone aloft again and again, and causing it to spin erratically through successive off-center shots. With a final shot, he sent it flying over to Samus. "Fire at will," Bauer yelled over the sounds of weapons fire, and Samus replied by unleashing a series of rapid-fire shots, whirling the drone about its long axis rapidly before knocking it across the bay into a recycling bin next to the blast doors.

"Nice shooting, ma'am," one of the technicians commented.

Bauer checked off a few points on his data pad. "Sensory, fine motor and weapons look good, let's do gross motor. Can you step back out of the armature, turn around and walk ten paces aft, please?"

Samus did as requested, feeling the suit respond like an old friend, perfectly matching her movements as she backed up and strode across the bay. "Feels great. I'll pass on the rest of the gross motor checks, I can do those myself. You guys did a nice job."

"Thanks," the lieutenant replied, with an aw-shucks expression. "We'll just check mobility and get you out of here. There's a maglift on the overhead," he said, indicating a swing arm fifteen meters above their heads. Samus craned her head back to look, and her HMD superimposed a claw icon over the swing arm's end, indicating that it would provide a viable grapple point. "I want you to jump up to the service gantry, swing across to the catwalk and come back down via the equipment tube."

The soft rumbling whoosh of the jump thrusters was Samus' reply, as she leaped five meters straight up and landed lightly on the service gantry. A quick grapple swing took her over to the maintenance catwalk, and she knelt on the deck, tucking into a forward roll. Within a fraction of a second, the armor plates reconfigured themselves around her body, sliding up and over themselves to form a sphere approximately a meter in diameter. The morph ball rolled down the pneumatic shaft used for carrying equipment to and from the gantries, stopping a meter or so away from Bauer's feet. A second later, a buzz of servomotors announced Samus' resumption of her bipedal form. "Working fine."

"Then you're all set." Bauer finished his checklist and then held the pad out to her for a palmprint. "I just need a signature here, and you can be on your way. They warned us you had a tight connection window. I took the liberty of giving you a navpoint back to the launch bay; just call up your automap if you get lost."

"That will be fine," Samus replied. The time display windowed into her HMD reminded her that she had slightly less than twenty minutes to return to the launch bay in order to make her flight on to Aliehs. "Thank you all," she said, in a slightly quieter tone. "I won't forget this."

"The pleasure was all ours." The lieutenant extended his left hand to shake, and Samus smiled behind the visor. Very few people, even those who'd been around her long enough to know better, remembered her armor's lack of a right hand for such social gestures. "Give 'em hell, and tell 'em we sent you."

Samus' reply was a half-wave, half-salute as she strode purposefully out of the Engineering bay. All the anger and frustration of the past day had melted away, replaced by a new sense of direction, and the feeling grew stronger with each thud of her armored boots against the deck.

Whoever or whatever had decided to make Adam their target was going to get an object lesson in what happened when you crossed Samus Aran.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, THAT didn't go over too well for our heroines, but at least Samus has her armor back. Judging by what the Cardinal group has thrown in her way so far, she'll need it.

The Federation Police motto, rendered here in abominably bad Latin, is supposed to be "Fidelity is the greatest of the virtues." Any Latin speakers in the readership, please feel free to correct me.

The "pressure garment" that goes under Samus' armor is, of course, the Zero Suit. She still has a couple of the old, ocean blue models, but expect to see a lot more of the new version since it's insulated. Readers who have played the games will recognize both the new-old missile configuration (255 standard missiles plus 50 advanced missiles) and the missiles' interchangeability options (Super, Ice, Diffusion). The visor system also got a name change with its upgrades, to the technically more accurate HMD (helmet-mounted display).

"I liked this thing better when I could wish it on and off" - some recent entries in the game series (_Zero Mission, Prime 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl)_, as well as later issues of the manga, have the suit's manifestation entirely controlled by Samus' mind. Quite literally, she wishes it on and off, and if she's too stressed to maintain her focus on its continued existence, the suit vanishes. To my mind, that's a very, very foolish way to control a piece of equipment that's meant to protect her precisely when she can't protect herself - not to mention that it smacks of a bad superhero drama. Thankfully, that mechanism seems to be gone in _Fusion,_ thanks to the combined effects of the X infection and the metroid serum.

I do apologize for the terribly late update on this story. School has eaten up practically all of my writing time, and this chapter turned out being two-part length and then some (it's nearly 14 K words long in its original format). With any luck at all, I'll have the second half out in a much shorter interval.

Thank you all for reading!


	8. The Fire and the Fury, Part 2

Chapter 8: The Fire and the Fury, Part 2

_Soundtrack: "Suite for an I-Jin," Taku Iwasaki, from the Read Or Die OVA soundtrack.

* * *

_

"Charles, did I not tell you to watch your step around Samus Aran?" Thabo Hackworth barked as he burst through the door to Admiral Renard's office.

"No, you advised a path of caution around Samus Aran, which I deemed to be inadvisable given the circumstances," Renard said mildly. "And do sit down, I'll not have you tramping about my office like a caged beast."

Hackworth did not sit, instead choosing to pace around the office, ticking off points on his fingers. "She's off the damned reservation, Charles. Your little stunt burning down the lab on Tian was cute. Real cute. So cute, in fact, that she's personally investigating the case. We have her talking to the local fire brigade, to the cops, to the scientist whose lab you torched. After that, she went straight to Valerian, got her armor back, and is now en route to Aliehs III for her ship. You just might well have exposed us all."

"I fail to see your concern, Thabo," Renard replied, icily calm. "I know you think she's some kind of superhero, but at the end of the day she's a _bounty hunter._ No more, no less."

"It amazes me how someone with so much experience in intelligence can so completely miss the big picture," Hackworth shot back. "You've had every opportunity to handle this with minimal collateral damage, and you've blown it at every step. You could have had a Wildfire put on Aran at the very beginning - with her out of the picture, none of this ever happens. Instead, you went after 129, botched it, and she lodged the complaint. You could have left the unit alone and let her fail on her own, like the entire damned group told you to do at the last meeting. Instead, you blew our one asset taking out the lab, and set both Aran and the Mandeville locals on us. Now, she's got her armor, her ship, the evidence, and a burning desire to see us all go down."

"And you're the one with a case of hero worship and a knack for missing the details," Renard snapped, and the familiar rage was beginning to burn in his features. "Unit 129 isn't just a rogue AI, Thabo. That system contains the memograph of a man we had neutralized once before - someone who knows where the bodies are buried. Someone who could have us all dancing Danny Deever, if word gets out. Someone who very nearly ended my career personally, once. _That's_ the threat. Not this half-wit head chaser you're pissing your pants over."

"I thought you might say that." Hackworth shook his head sadly. "There's something else you need to be aware of, Charles. There's been... talk, further up in the organization. About you. Put it this way, Zara isn't the only one who thinks you're becoming a liability. I don't know what the hell happened between you and this Unit 129 in the past, but ever since you got onboard with this business, you've been like a man possessed. Whatever it is, you can't afford another screw-up. Too many people have too many eyes on you."

"What are they going to do, disavow me?" Renard said dismissively. "They cut me loose, they lose their only direct link to DFDI. Executive isn't stupid, Thabo. He knows what side his bread's buttered. He can bitch all he likes, but until that Malko--"

Hackworth cocked his head questioningly. "Mal-what?"

"Malcontent AI is dealt with, we're all under the gun," Renard covered quickly, hoping the other man wouldn't notice his slip of the tongue.

"Look, I'm not here to tell you what to do, just to offer some friendly advice. Executive has about had it with your antics, Charles. This is a direct quote: 'He's been very useful to our cause so far, but he's very rapidly becoming more trouble than he's worth.' You need to straighten out this business with Aran and Unit 129. Quickly. And _quietly._ There is no room for error on this one. You've already left a trail of dead bodies across three galactic sectors, and if a 'half-wit head chaser,' as you so quaintly put it, can read the signs, you can be damned sure she's not the only one." He sighed, ran a hand over his high-and-tight buzz cut. "I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but we've worked together too long for me to see you go down this way. There's an order in Executive's desk with your name on it. He has no qualms about cutting you loose if you fail. We clear?"

Renard's watery, pale gray gaze never wavered. "Crystal."

* * *

According to the best estimates of the Federation's greatest astronomers, the Milky Way galaxy contained some three hundred billion stars, of which approximately one quarter could be expected to support terrestrial planets. Of those, perhaps one half of one percent had been directly surveyed, either by the various species of the Federation or by known, extinct civilizations such as the Chozo. One half of one percent of 75 billion is still a mind-boggling number, and so only the most suitable worlds had been selected for government-sponsored colonization - those that orbited yellow to yellow-white stars, supported liquid water and a temperate oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, contained at least one commercially exploitable resource, and preferably lay within easy access of the major galactic travel routes. The millions of planets that didn't fit that description went begging, available to the highest bidder for whatever purpose one might desire. Aliehs III fit that latter description, a "super Earth" located in the heart of the Nanvar Sector, which avoided colonization as a result of its vanishingly thin, ethane and carbon dioxide atmosphere. The Colonization Bureau's loss had been Federated Techsystems' gain, as the planet admirably suited their needs for a large, centrally located, metal-rich world on which to build their galactic headquarters.

"Welcome back, Ms. Aran," a Federated representative said, all polished competence in an impeccably tailored black suit, as Samus stepped off the shuttle and into the docking area. As he turned around, she noted the ever-so-slight bulge of a concealed weapon under his left arm, as well as a data matrix code tattooed under his right eye, the mark of a security-cleared employee. "We hope you had a pleasant flight out here - or, at least as pleasant as commercial can be."

The hunter's reply was a slight nod of the helmet.

"I see here that you requested a complete service, inspection and re-fueling. Everything's showing completed, you are ready to go. May we file a flight plan on your behalf?"

Samus nodded again. "I will be departing for Daiban as soon as my ship is powered up."

"Excellent," the Federated representative replied, pulling a data pad from inside his jacket and making a few rapid notes. "If you'll follow me, I'll escort you back to your hangar."

The pair traveled through a warren of tunnels, eventually arriving at a rapid transit station. The Federated man scanned them through the security gates, ushering Samus aboard before typing in their destination. A moment later, the car whined to life, humming along its track a hundred meters above the ground. Samus stared silently out the window as the kilometers clicked past, looking with interest at the thousands and thousands of storage yards, construction facilities and factories. Eventually the industrial areas gave way to testing facilities, and from there the private warehouses and armories of Federated's "preferred clientele" - the few thousand people who had acquired, through wealth or connections, custom contracting privileges with the huge defense conglomerate.

"Here we are. I'll just need you to scan through and open the door, and we'll be all set." Samus did as requested, and the Federation rep stepped away as the heavy vault door swung open. "And if you need any assistance, please don't hesitate to ask." With a respectful bow, he left the same way they'd came.

Large overhead lights flickered to life, one by one, as Samus stepped into the hangar space, which housed all manner of maintenance equipment, crates of ammunition and gear, and all the other detritus of a life in the fugitive recovery trade. She smiled as her eyes immediately picked out the sweeping W shape of _Hunter III_ resting on its landing struts, the gunship's sleekly menacing orange bulk as familiar to her as her own reflection. "Hello again, old girl," she murmured affectionately, rapping her knuckles against the heavy armor plating of the lower hull. From the frigate-sized drive to the quartet of high-powered particle weapons and the twin anti-ship missile launchers, _Hunter III_ was a warship to the core, in stark contrast to the spartan two-guns-and-an-engine configuration of the first Hunter-class and the exploration-optimized, lightly armed second incarnation.

The ship had been inert as she stepped into the hangar, but as she approached the ventral hatch, a status message appeared in her HMD: _**IFF beacon querying... Identity confirmed. Welcome aboard.**_ A moment later, the running lights came on, and the hatch dropped open.

Once aboard the ship, Samus began running through the pre-flight checklists, waking the computer out of its hibernation mode with a palmprint. The control panel's touchplate lit up green, and the cockpit's central display flashed through its wake sequence. Unlike the patrol boat she'd borrowed for the BSL mission, _Hunter III_ could start itself with a minimum of pilot intervention, and with a quick command, the ship's computer began the startup, marked only by the flow of instructions down the cockpit display.

_**System diagnostics: OK  
****Fuel feed: Automatic****  
Coolant pump speed: Low****  
Engine mode: Atmosphere  
Bleed energy mode: Startup  
APG start initiated...  
Ground power disconnecting... Done.**_

A high-pitched hum sounded faintly from the aft end of the ship as the auxiliary power generator turned over, and the display halted on a command line.

_**Confirm main reactor start? YES / NO**_

Samus tapped "Yes" on the panel. The hum grew louder as the APG began feeding power to the ship's reactor in preparation for starting, and a new window flashed up on her cockpit screen.

_**Main reactor start sequence initialized.  
Time to reactor online: 13 min 47 sec**_

As she continued the pre-flight routine of starting equipment and conducting safety checks, a faint scuffling sound drew Samus' attention. She paused, turning her helmet's audio pickups to maximum, and a moment later, there it was again: the soft shuffle of boots on metal.

_What the? This is a secured hangar--_

At the same time, her HMD's local radar blinked to life, displaying half a dozen red dots scuttling around her position.

_Oh, hell,_ she thought disgustedly. The dots were moving with more purpose now, four of them setting up a roughly trapezoidal perimeter around her ship while two more maneuvered inside. Samus activated the exterior monitors, and saw two of the assault squad taking up positions, each man unslinging a large metal box from his back. She bit back a curse as she recognized the boxes' contents: rocket launchers, automatic coil cannon, the heaviest of man-portable armament. If she attempted to depart, they would shoot her down - not that she could go anywhere with another ten minutes remaining on _Hunter III_'s reactor - and if she tried to take them head-on, not even her armor would save her.

A plan occurred to her then, as she studied the approaching doom. A frontal assault would be suicide, but frontal assaults weren't her only option...

"Don't mind me, I'm just a rattle in the pipes," she whispered, stepping to the cockpit's aft bulkhead and kneeling to open a hatch concealed in the decking. A moment later, she folded herself into ball form and rolled slowly down into the engineering crawlspaces.

It took her three minutes, moving as she was at speeds somewhat slower than a crawl to minimize her noise signature, but Samus finally emerged in the reactor compartment, one space aft of the hostiles' position in the equipment bay. She chanced a peek through the open hatchway, and had to smile as she saw just how well her plan had worked. The pair of commandos, both clad in black combat suits, had their backs to her, watching the main passageway alertly with their weapons trained on the forward hatch. _Dumb bastards think I'm still in the cockpit. They'll never know what hit 'em._

Moving silently, Samus stepped out from her cover and through the hatch, positioning herself behind the first commando. In one fluid motion, her cannon arm came up perpendicular to the back of his neck, while she snared his neck in the crook of her left elbow and jerked his head back and left with all her strength. Her effort was rewarded with a nauseating cracking sound, as the man's spine broke at the second and third vertebrae - a perfect hangman's fracture. He slumped bonelessly to the deck, staring up at his killer with wide, terrified eyes as the life left his body. His companion whirled around at the noise. "What--"

Too late. A mechanically augmented fist whistled down on his head, splitting his skull open and knocking him flat on the deck. A second blow ensured he wouldn't be getting up again.

_Two done, four left,_ Samus thought, kneeling to retrieve the first man's gauss rifle. Carrying the second weapon would deprive her of the morph ball and its enhanced evasion capabilities, but it would also double her existing firepower. She slung the weapon over her shoulder and then seized the corpse by his collar, dragging him over to the airlock. The second body she left alone; she would space him once she had made her escape.

With a grimace of distaste, she noted the blood and other fluids puddled near the second corpse. _I can see I'm going to have to scrub down the deck plating once I get out of here._

Once she had positioned the first body within the airlock, she stepped inside and picked him up, wrapping the rifle's sling around his upper torso and then back around her own shoulder. Her left arm went around his abdomen, holding him upright, while she hid her right arm behind her own back. Luckily, the dead man was somewhat taller than she, adding to the concealment. The illusion wouldn't last for more than a few seconds, of course, but it might buy her enough time to get into the enemy positions.

With a quick wish for good fortune, she elbowed the controls for the ventral hatch, riding it down to the hangar floor.

The remaining commandos tensed on their weapons' triggers as the hatch whined open and one of their own number staggered out. "Countersign," their leader said.

The man made no response, shuffling drunkenly toward their positions.

"I said, countersign," the leader repeated, raising his weapon. "Halt and reply, or be fired upon." As he spoke, he noticed something strange: a second pair of boots behind those of his colleague. "What the f--"

Gunfire exploded within the hangar as the man's gauss rifle swung up to cover their positions, firing in short, jerky bursts. One commando died instantly, unlucky enough to be caught by a full barrage. At the same time, the man began running toward them, revealing not only a second pair of boots, but another entire person - one wearing black and red powered armor, with a massive cannon replacing its right arm.

"Son of a bitch - that's _her!_ Take her down!" the leader yelled, struggling to be heard in the chaos of uncontrolled firepower. Taking careful aim at the center of his former comrade's chest, he opened fire, emptying the weapon's entire magazine at the concealed hunter behind him.

Gauss rounds thudded into the corpse, protecting Samus from their impact as she sprinted into the crates, using directed bursts from the dead man's weapon as suppressing fire. Another commando, this one armed with a rocket launcher, popped out to challenge her, and she fired both the rifle and her arm cannon at the same time, sending the would-be hero to a rapid and very messy end. As she reached the safety of the crates, she dropped the body and threw away the now-emptied rifle, smoothly dropping into a forward somersault.

"In the crates! Two o'clock! Get me an angle--"

The man never saw the black sphere roll up behind him, nor the trio of glowing charges it left behind. A moment later, the bombs detonated in a searing flash of energy, reducing the hapless commando to ashes. His weapon - an anti-vehicle rocket launcher - cooked off a second later, its missile streaking across the hangar and obliterating a travel lift and several other pieces of equipment, as well as the commando hiding within the collection.

_That's five gone,_ Samus thought, unfolding herself from the morph ball as another red dot winked out of her HMD's local radar. _One left. I'll have to be careful, that's the guy with the coil gun. With firepower like that, I wonder why these clowns didn't think to just put a few rounds through the ship?_

The last man, concealed behind a crate, carefully eased himself into a firing position over the sudden silence that fell within the hangar. He could just barely see a faint red smear bobbing around the aft end of the gunship, and he smiled to himself as he took aim. Even the invincible bounty hunter would never survive a direct headshot from a hypersonic half-meter long rail of tungsten steel. He took a deep breath and held it, inching forward just a few more centimeters to improve his firing angle.

That move turned out to be his fatal error, as a glowing bolt of electrostatic charge latched onto his weapon and yanked it away, burning his hands and sending him tumbling off balance. He scrambled back, trying to reach his sidearm, but only received a fresh dose of pain for his trouble, as a metal boot smashed into his forearm and shattered it beyond use.

Sprawled on his back, whimpering in agony, he looked up to see Death herself looming over him.

"Who sent you?" the hunter said, in a flat synthetic voice.

"Fap you," the man managed to spit out.

Samus reached down and effortlessly picked him up, holding him by his neck and squeezing as his feet flailed spasmodically, a good ten centimeters off the ground. "Who... sent... you?"

The commando shook his head, his frantic eyes darting around the room as he searched for some source of salvation.

"Your friends are not coming," Samus said. "Your continued existence depends on whether you start talking. Who sent you?"

The man shook his head again, as the vise grip on his neck tightened. Five seconds passed, then ten, and just as he began to convulse, she eased the pressure. "Changed your mind?"

"Go to hell."

The hunter's arm cannon whined as a small blast of high-temperature, high-velocity plasma spat from its barrel, turning the commando's remaining hand into a charred stump. Over his shrieks, she said mercilessly, "I can continue this all day. I doubt you will last that long. Who sent you?"

"Cardinal." The commando coughed and gurgled, shaking the smoking remains of his arm. "Cardinal wants you dead. Hunter - they said we had to kill Samus Aran the Hunter. You can't run. Can't fight. They won't stop till you're dead. You're dead. I'm dead."

Behind her visor, Samus frowned, trying to make sense of the man's words. Cardinal was a name she'd heard before. "I will decide who lives or dies. Who is Cardinal?"

"Don't know. Federation. High up. All the way to the top. You can't understand how high it goes. They control everything. Everything. Fingers on the pulses of every citizen. Let 'em live, condemn 'em to die." The commando was babbling now, his eyes glazing over. "End the galaxy with a wave of the hand. Cardinal."

"I see." Samus studied the man for a long moment. "You choose. Take your chances on the run, or I give you a quick end now."

The commando shook his head. "I'm a dead man anyway. So are you. End it, Hunter."

"Very well." It wasn't the choice she would have made, but she understood the commando's rationale. She blinked twice, eyes locked on his face, as her cannon swung down to bear on his head.

A second later, the HMD's targeting reticle winked out, as a gout of plasma turned the man to ash.

* * *

"And that's the end of that," CJ sighed, putting aside the last of her data pads. The last two days had seen her in an endless round of debriefings, interviews and post-incident analyses, all aimed at recovering Barnard University's losses from the equipment fire that had claimed most of the computer science building.

And then, there was the matter of her final report to Samus, which still lay untouched in the corner. CJ hadn't been able to bring herself to look at it, justifying the lapse as lack of time or energy what with dealing with the university bureaucrats and insurance adjusters. However, if she really wanted to be honest with herself, she had to admit that the real reason was rather a bit more crass: she was still sore over the hunter "outing" herself as a transgenic, and suspicious that her own response to the news had been less than appropriate given the circumstances. One stinging remark still echoed in her mind as she thought over the incident: _"I would have thought you'd have the intellectual capacity to recognize when your worldview doesn't fit the evidence. I guess you learn something new every day. Well, some of us do, at least."_

She didn't know which burned worse: the accusation of intellectual dishonesty, the fact that said accusation had come from a bounty hunter with minimal formal education, or the nagging conviction that Samus might just have been right.

_So suck it up and do the research, Donovan, nobody ever died of wounded pride, _she told herself_. Hop onto JIAS, run a quick search through BuPers for Two Percent separations, and answer the question for good._

Using her reservist's access, CJ logged herself into the Federation military networks. A quick series of links took her to the Bureau of Personnel, and from there, it was relatively easy to order a search of recent military discharges and separations.

_**GFDF Joint Information Access System - Bureau of Personnel  
Search by status: Status:SEP OR DISCHG AND Rationale:Section 33.42  
151,297 records found. Displaying records 1-10.  
**_

_That many?_ CJ thought in shock. One hundred thousand plus people, all trying to serve illegally - it boggled her mind. On a whim, she clicked the link of the first Marine she saw. A moment later, her surprise grew an order of magnitude as she saw the man's service jacket. Two medals for valor under fire, several non-combat gallantry citations, a stack of favorable evaluations from his commanding officers - by all accounts, this man had been an exceptional Marine. He'd made it nine years in the Corps, rising to the rank of gunnery sergeant, before one of his comrades turned him in, on the basis that he had been born with withered legs and his parents had had the defect corrected with genetic therapy.

_How many more like this?_ she thought, moving on to the next record, that of a Navy chief petty officer, every bit as sterling as the first. Her crime had been genetic correction of lung disease, ironically caused by years of working in the sub-par air conditions of Federation naval vessels' engineering compartments. The next, a Marine captain, was one-eighth Jovian through his mother's side, which nobody would have known if he hadn't been wounded trying to save the lives of his company from a Pirate air assault. The list of discharges only grew, as did her shock, with each service jacket she read. Navy, Marines, Police, unified services - all highly qualified, highly trained people, many in positions of supreme importance, all sent packing for issues over which fully ninety-five percent of them would have had no control.

Her scientist's mind couldn't deny the evidence: none, or at least very few of these people had deserved the treatment they had been given.

_The question is, does Sam belong in that category, or is she still the shitbird you accused her of being?_

Backing out of her initial search, she reset the parameters to include private military contractors and typed in a name. A moment later, a detailed personnel dossier scrolled onto her screen, headed by a photo of a stern-faced blonde woman.

_**GFDF Joint Information Access System - Bureau of Personnel  
Individual Personnel Record - Summary View: Aran, Samus  
**_

_**Biographical Data:  
Date of birth: 8.6.2000 \ Personal Identity Number: 486719544  
Species: Standard Human (Transgenic) \ Sex: Female \ Hair/Eyes: Blonde/blue  
Height: 180 cm \ Weight: 75 kg  
Place of residence: Post Drop 113842, Dirian, Baloth Sector  
Occupation: Fugitive recovery agent (Class A, #13576)**_

_**Previous Service (1-10 shown, most recent entries first):  
11.1.2016-present: Private military contractor, GFDF Special Operations Command****  
10.15.2016: SEP/H/M/33.42  
8.1.2016-10.15.2016: Patrolman Second Class, GF Police (meritorious)  
6.15.2014-8.1.2016: Patrolman Third Class, GF Police  
3.15.2014-6.15.2014: Patrolman Second Class, GF Police  
9.10.2014-3.15.2014: Patrolman Recruit, GF Police  
**_

_**Detailed Service Record (1-10 shown, most recent entries first):**_  
_**-Op# 81205: Biologic Space Labs, Sigma Reticuli, Rhombus Sector: Investigate distress signal, contain xenobiological threats  
--Op status: Complete  
-Op# 09097: Zebes, FS-176, Spiral Sector**_: _**Recover domesticated metroid larva, neutralize and/or destroy Space Pirate operations (Emergency)  
--Op status: Complete w/ commendation  
Op# 80996: Ceres Station, Tonip Sector: Deliver captured metroid larva for study  
--Op status: Complete  
-Op# 79973: SR388, Sigma Reticuli, Rhombus Sector: Exterminate all metroid-type organisms  
--Op status: Complete w/ commendation  
-Op# 03317: Kalandor Sector: Contain xenobiological threat (Emergency)  
--Op status: Complete with commendation  
-Op# 79501: Norion, Kalandor, Kalandor Sector: Deliver antiviral to Aurora Unit network  
--Op status: Complete  
-Op# 02546: Aether, Lumos, Dasha Sector: Locate and assist missing personnel, B/2/4 MEU (Urgent)  
--Op status: Complete w/ commendation  
-Op# 79109: Tetra Galaxy: Recover and/or neutralize "Ultimate Power" of unknown civilization  
--Op status: Complete  
-Op# 01911: Zebes, FS-176, Spiral Sector: Exterminate all metroid-type organisms, neutralize and/or destroy Space Pirate leader Mother Brain (Emergency)  
--Op status: Complete w/ commendation  
-Op# 71337: Daiban, Carina, Capital Sector: Protect Unification Day ceremonies  
--Op status: Complete w/ commendation**_

CJ swore under her breath as she read on. Samus' personnel file, at least in her career as a bounty hunter, read like an encyclopedia of famous Federation crises. Moreover, in practically every case except the various operations in the Kalandor Sector, she had been dispatched completely without backup, behind enemy lines - sometimes within the very heart of the enemy operation. Despite the magnitude of what she must have faced, she had completed every mission she'd been given, most of them with commendations - actions for which a member of the Forces would have received a citation or a medal. Whatever else she might have been, Samus was no lightweight. She was also no liar. Just as she'd admitted, her record with the Police showed a promotion, a bust and a meritorious promotion, ending with an honorable separation for medical disability under Section 33.42 of the uniform justice code - the section detailing the Two Percent Policy. Apparently she'd either faked her age or come up with a writ of emancipation to enlist, too. At last check, CJ was fairly sure the Forces didn't normally accept fourteen-year-old recruits, be they Chozo Defenders or not.

The scientist leaned back in her chair, warring within her own mind.

On the one hand, Samus had deliberately enlisted in the Police knowing that her genetic status rendered her unfit for service, and then she and Adam had used that knowledge to game the system into granting her an honorable separation she probably would not have otherwise earned. Her sense of honor, acutely honed over nearly thirty years of living and breathing Marine Corps, told her that what they had done was an unforgivable violation of personal and institutional integrity. By rights, she should report the other woman to the authorities, withdraw her party to Adam's case, curse the day she ever heard of the two of them.

Then again, Samus had never lied about her service record, and Adam's actions had been perfectly legal, if perhaps ethically questionable. The act had removed a potential troublemaker from the Forces and given them a highly valuable contractor in return. Moreover, the jobs Samus had completed would have cost hundreds of thousands if they'd been offered under contract, where she had taken them for free, ironically out of the same sense of honor by which CJ had so freely condemned her.

If someone willingly agreed to serve and completed her service honorably, did it really matter whether she did so in uniform?

The communicator began to warble, startling CJ out of her reverie. Standing to answer it, she was surprised to hear her mother's voice on the other end. Owing to the expense of interstellar communication, they only spoke every few weeks. "Mom? This is a surprise. What's up?"

_"I wanted to call and let you know about the plans for family Christmas, so you could buy your tickets early. Honestly though, I didn't expect to get hold of you. How come you're home? Are you working from home today?"_

"You could say that," CJ sighed. "It probably didn't make the news where you guys live, but there was a fire here two days - well, three days Standard ago. My lab was involved. Don't worry though, I'm fine."

Mrs. Donovan let out a gasp of horror. _"Oh my God, I never imagined. Are you sure you're all right? What are you going to do?"_

"No, really, Mom, I'm fine. I was out of the lab when it happened. The university already said they're going to cover the losses, but right now it's just hurry up and wait. I've probably got another week or so of insurance garbage and meetings, and then I'll be on the beach for who knows how long before the U can find me new lab space."

_"We'd love to see you, if you get the chance to--"_ Mrs. Donovan's voice changed in mid-sentence, becoming much more businesslike. _"Just a moment, your father's here. I'll put him on."_

Out of childhood reflex, CJ sat up ramrod straight, her facial expression reverting to an impassive thousand-meter stare, even though she was alone in the apartment. "Sergeant Major, I have the honor--"

_"Stow the smart ass, you know damned well they don't stand on ceremony in CIVFLEET,"_ Patrick Donovan replied, in a voice that sounded like unoiled machinery. _"How the hell are ya, twerp?"_

"Been better," CJ replied. "My lab burned down three days Standard ago. I've been up to my ears in insurance paperwork ever since. They say it was an equipment malfunction, but I don't buy it."

_"Someone tried to frag you,"_ Patrick said. _"Who'd ya piss off to earn that?"_

"I have a sneaking suspicion it might have been to do with a project I was working on. It was a private job for some famous bounty hunter, recovering a twisted AI. I guess whatever the job was tweaked some high-up feathers or stepped on some secret squirrel's toes, and I just got the shit-bomb by association."

Patrick grunted. _"And you have no one to blame but yourself, don't ya? You're smarter than that, getting involved with that kind of trash. Stay the hell away from those people, they're nothing but trouble."_

CJ didn't dare snicker, as amusing as her father's characteristically pragmatic situation analysis might have been. "Sir, permission to ask a question?"

_"Asking's free. Answers might cost ya."_

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Did you ever serve with any Two Percenters?"

Patrick's reply was a grumble. _"Not personally, but I heard about 'em in other units. They're individuals at best." _The older Donovan's disgusted snarl reflected the typical Old Corps interpretation of the word: a person who couldn't or wouldn't fit the mold, obey orders or otherwise live up to the standards of the ideal Marine._ "Most of 'em go way worse. Heard from a buddy in 3 MEF how his friend got shot in the back by one once, no shit. What makes you ask?"_

CJ frowned as she considered the statement. She'd hoped for a somewhat better explanation of thirty years' worth of prejudices than a no-shit story. "I recently found out that a very famous civilian associate of the Forces originally got bounced from the Police for popping positive on a gene test. I'm not at liberty to say who, but this individual is, to all appearances, a galactic hero, and they didn't even have any say in being genemodded - it was done when they were still a baby. I wondered if the same thing might be going on with other Two Percenters."

_"Beats me. As far as I know, the regs say they need to go, and that's all I concern myself with. They're a threat to my Corps, I say throw 'em out the fappin' airlock and good riddance to bad rubbish. You commissioned types can noodle around with the philosophical shit, the whys and wherefores."_

"Huh," CJ noised. It wasn't the answer she had expected, but in retrospect, perhaps she should have. "That's all. I was just curious."

* * *

Five hundred light-years away, the object of CJ's musings cruised through the twilight of hyperspace, intently studying one of the security logs Lieutenant Sanderson had given her. The tape showed nine views of the laboratory building, two views of the lobby plus one in each elevator and four of the fifth floor. Every hour, a campus security guard would sweep the halls, always the same guard and always on the same path. _Poor security there, any fool could figure out the pattern and dodge the guards,_ Samus thought as she watched. At 0400, janitorial staff appeared, cleaning the building for the day's activities.

_Wait. That guy - the janitor._ She paused the video, zooming in. The janitor who'd boarded the elevator in the lobby and pushed the button for 5 wasn't the same man who emerged on the floor. She focused the view on the man's face. It wasn't anyone she recognized, but she would keep a copy of the still frame for identification later. Perhaps someone would recognize the perpetrator.

The calm voice of the ship's computer broke into Samus' thoughts. "Approaching target coordinates. Autopilot disengaged. N-space reentry in five seconds."

A boil of energy announced the gunship's return to normal space, as twelve hours' worth of accumulated heat and radiation fled the confines of its now-dissipated hyper bubble. Thanks to its oversized drive systems, _Hunter III_ could maintain a hyper bubble for longer periods and attain higher speeds than any ship its own size and many larger. However, even a system so advanced had its limits, and twelve hours, give or take a few minutes on either end, represented the approximate maximum cruise time at maximum acceleration that the ship could sustain. Samus had carefully planned the journey to take advantage of those built-in stops, choosing a relatively direct route that nonetheless kept her more or less off the main travel lanes, and thus away from any would-be ambushers. She'd also taken the precaution of filing a false flight plan - illegal, of course, and she'd be in hot water if a Federation Police patrol vessel happened to cross her path - and thus, while any potential search party might be headed for Daiban, she flew in approximately the opposite direction toward Tian.

Her thoughts returned to the analysis of the Adam data. _"Two points. One's tagged DFDI, the other is Cardinal. Any ideas what that might mean?"  
_

Adam's engram had warned her about "Cardinal," with strong hints that Cardinal had betrayed him in his human life. And now, the mercenary she'd interrogated at the Aliehs hangar had said he was working for Cardinal too. It was far too much coincidence for her to accept. Worse, whoever or whatever Cardinal was, it was likely sponsored by the Defense Forces Department of Intelligence, as corroborated by the Adam data and the commando's confession.

An idea began to take shape in her mind, as she considered the situation. Breaking comms silence would be a risk, but given how far off the beaten path she was, it was a risk she felt comfortable taking. Pulling the communications terminal down from its pivot arm, she tapped in a series of authentication codes and waited for the system to connect with the nearest hyperspace relay. Several seconds later, the display lit green, indicating that it had established an encrypted link with the other party.

_"Thank you for calling HQ Third Fleet. How may I direct your call?"_

"I'm calling for Fleet Admiral Castor Dane," Samus replied. "Tell him Samus Aran would like to speak with him."

_"One moment, please."_ The line clicked, and what was apparently meant to be soothing music tinkled across the connection. Samus unsealed her helmet and pulled it off, letting it drop to the deck beside her chair. Dane was one of the few people left in the galaxy with whom she would rather use her own voice.

_"This is a surprise,"_ Admiral Dane said across the secured channel. _"To what do I owe the pleasure?"_

"I need to call in some markers," Samus replied, her tone businesslike. "I'm working a private case, multiple homicide, and all my leads are tracing back to a person or organization named Cardinal. I've heard, but can't confirm, reports that this entity is a Fed black ops outfit. I understand this might put you in a tough spot, but if there's any information at all that you can give me..."

_"You're going to have to give me more to go on than that, Samus,"_ the admiral mused. _"I don't know if you're aware, but there's been a lot of noise going around the Admiralty about you lately. The nicest of it says that the X infection might have scrambled your head a bit. More than a few people here think you've gone off the reservation."_

"Would it help if I told you that Adam Malkovich was involved?" Off Dane's thunderstruck gasp, she continued, "I have very reliable information that says he was set up back in '26."

After several seconds' silence, Dane said, _"Go on."_

"My sources indicate that the enemy combatants at Nereid Traverse might have had a heads-up, and that one or more players at DFDI might have been involved. I started to dig into it, and now I've had someone try to hit me on two planets, and I'm finding a trail of bodies pointing back to this Cardinal. I don't know about you, but that's just a little too much coincidence for my diet."

_"And I assume you can't reveal your source."_ Dane sighed, and then continued speaking. _"I don't know how much help I can be to you, Samus. Don't misunderstand, if I had the information I'd give it to you in a second, classified or not. Adam was an Academy classmate of mine. It's just that I've been out of that particular game for almost a decade. Most of my contacts are either dead, in prison or irrelevant."_

"I think you're selling yourself short, sir." In a more conciliatory tone, she continued, "Anything you can tell me would be helpful. I know you still have friends at DFDI. Maybe you want to go have lunch with someone, and get back to me on it."

_"I can't promise you anything, but I'll see what I can do. Is this a good channel to reach you?"_

"This is fine. If I'm not aboard ship, the computer will re-route it to my portable. That device has a secured link too."

_"Excellent. I'll be in touch. Dane out."_

Samus shut down the system with a half-smile. For the first time in a long time, she could see light at the end of the tunnel. She just hoped it wasn't an oncoming train.

_

* * *

_Author's Notes: And in the second half of this two-parter, Renard and the rest of the Cardinal group are under the gun, Samus takes a page from the Metal Gear Solid school of prisoner handling (must be from hanging around Solid Snake at those Smash fights ;-) ), and CJ starts to suspect that she might have shot her mouth off. Suffice to say, Sam isn't the only one looking for oncoming trains. :-)

_Hunter III,_ as some of you might recall from previous works or from the series bible, is the gunship from _Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. _

FTL communication does exist in this universe, but it's point-to-point only. The Federation maintains networks of communication relays, which operate by generating precisely timed FTL "micro-bubbles" at very high speeds; the on/off pattern of the bubbles can thus constitute binary code. Various encoding, multiplexing and compression algorithms are used to transmit data along the relays, and then converted to light-speed communication formats (radio, laser, etc) for the "last light-second" to the end user. Shipboard FTL, such as it is, involves communicating with the nearest FTL relay by a convenient light-speed method. There is no FTL broadcast, nor are there mobile FTL transceivers; the location of each end of the link must be both static and precisely known in order to generate and time the bubbles so that they will arrive at their destination in proper order. FTL communication is very expensive, and tends to be asynchronous, as each party will reserve their communications for time periods when local access rates are low.

Miscellaneous cultural notes: "Danny Deever" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling, about the hanging of a British soldier for murder. The reference recurs in Robert Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_ as a shorthand for military capital punishment. There are many colloquialisms to reference a serviceperson's return to civilian life; in the United States, some common versions include "transferred to CIVDIV" (Civilian Division), "transferred to DD-214" (sounds like a ship's hull number, actually the name of the Department of Defense discharge form), and "assumed command of Fort Backyard/_USS Lawnchair_" (self-explanatory).

Thank you all for continuing to read and review!

_Edited 5/6 to fix a typo and subsequent math errors: there are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way, not 300 million. Thanks to Xanrath for the catch._


	9. The Darkness Before the Dawn

9. The Darkness Before The Dawn

_Soundtrack: "The Wards" and "A Very Dangerous Place," Jack Wall and Sam Hulick, from the Mass Effect soundtrack._

* * *

_"Attention approaching vessel Golf Hotel Hotel Three-Zero-One, this is Tian Astro Control. We don't have a flight plan on file for you. Please identify yourself and your passengers, state your intended course, and inform us if you need emergency assistance."_

On the gunship's flight deck, Samus allowed herself a smile as she approached her intended destination. Defender or not, sooner or later she still had to obey the traffic laws. With a press of the comms switch, she replied, "Tian ATC, this is _Hunter III,_ private registry out of Aliehs. PIC aboard is a Federation citizen - transmitting my passport data now. I have a business meeting in Mandeville that came up on short notice. Requesting permission to land."

Several seconds later, the traffic controller came back on the line, and she was sure she heard someone's agonized moan in the background. _"Hunter III, you're cleared for landing at Mandeville Metropolitan. Please stay within your designated flight path and disable all weapons before you cross the hundred-kilometer boundary. And please, do try to keep the property damage to a minimum."_

The cockpit echoed with laughter. "Copy that. Thank you. _Hunter III_ out."

The flight path the traffic controller had assigned her was clearly designed for civilian vessels, as it took her in a series of long, spiraling curves along the coastline, a pattern designed to kill re-entry speed for ships lacking either repulsors or adequate thermal shielding. Samus found herself fidgeting slightly at the controls - this was an approach she could fly in her sleep - and forced herself to sit back, with a self-deprecating snicker at her own impatience. _Fourteen years I've been at this and I still treat every landing like a combat drop,_ she thought. _One of these days I have to learn how to fly like a normal person._

Several minutes later, _Hunter III_ pirouetted gracefully onto its designated landing pad in the general aviation section of the spaceport, and the ventral hatch slid open, allowing its pilot to step down to the tarmac. Unlike the warlike appearance she might have presented under other circumstances, she had decided to forgo her armor in favor of casual clothing, opting for a light blue thermal turtleneck, jeans, a rather battered but serviceable brown leather pilot's jacket and matching boots. She was far from unarmed, though - the Paralyzer concealed at her right hip and the knife in her boot saw to that, as did the secure data channel built into her portable communicator. One quick call would prompt the gunship to home in on her position and execute either an airstrike or a low-altitude extraction depending on her command.

As Samus walked toward the office area to check in and pay her deposit, she stopped suddenly as she noticed a second figure blocking her path. Anger bubbled up in her chest as she recognized the interloper, and she turned aside, regarding the other with cold eyes.

"What are you doing here, CJ?" Samus asked. Her voice was so devoid of inflection that it might have come from her helmet's synthesizer instead of her own lips.

"I came to apologize," CJ said softly, her gaze directed at her shoes. "I realized over the last few days what an ass I made of myself with the whole... you know, the Two Percent thing. I decided that... well, maybe... I think I've had a very wrong idea about non-humans... and I wanted you to know that."

The hunter's frigid stare never wavered. "I can't imagine how that's possible. You made your opinions crystal clear when I left. Three days won't change that."

"Except, sometimes, yes it does." CJ finally looked up to meet Samus' eyes, and her face bore the same earnest expression it did when she'd come up with some particularly impressive chain of logic. "First off, you need to understand why I said and did the things I did. I was raised with a very particular way of looking at things like... like what you told me three days ago. What the two of you did... If you'd told me that story with no names attached, I'd say the cop was a half-assed, no-account Two Percent shitbird along with his worthless Navy REMF of a boyfriend and they both ought to be strung up. Or at least, I'd say that because that's all I heard my father say for almost thirty years."

Samus merely inclined her head to one side, folding her arms over her chest.

"You know the old psych trope, female children tend to idolize their fathers, and vice versa. Ever since I was little, I was Daddy's little girl. I always stood up straighter, kept my room neater, got better marks in school than either of my brothers. When my older brother was in secondary, Dad pulled strings to get him an appointment to the Naval Academy, and Brandon told him to piss off, he was going to business school. Dad was crushed. 'Where did I go wrong raising that boy,' was all he said for a month. So I decided I was going to sign up for the Marines as soon as I hit legal age, so there'd be another Donovan to carry on the tradition. And the day I graduated OCS was the proudest day of my life... not because I was a Marine officer, but because my dad stood up and saluted me. You need to understand that: a man I'd looked up to my whole life, a man who had been a Marine longer than I'd been alive, saluted me. You can't buy motivation like that. So I was going to be every bit the officer my dad might have been. His beliefs, his ideas, his way of operating. I was going to be Pat Donovan Junior, and I didn't care for one second if it might be right or wrong.

"You know one of the key assumptions of science is that if some evidence proves your old theory wrong, you're supposed to scrap the old theory before you scrap the new evidence. In other words, don't force the facts to fit some arbitrary hypothesis. Well, I did some, uh, research on my off time, while you were gone. And yeah, I looked up your service record, but I looked for all the Two Percent dismissals over the last few years... and Sam, they were all good guys. Sailors, Marines, Feds, joint services. Just about all of them had multiple commendations, they'd all been in combat postings, all their unit buddies thought the universe of 'em. Smart, tough, dedicated people, the kind any armed forces would be proud of. All of them just wanted one thing, to serve their country. And all of them were kicked to the curb, for no other reason than genetic status.

"And then I called my dad, to ask what he thought. I told him that I'd found out that one of the greatest heroes of the galaxy, I didn't say who, was a Two Percenter. And I found out that, deep down, he was just parroting the same standard line. Everything he knew about Two Percenters, even after fifty years in the Corps, was friend-of-a-friend stuff at best and sea stories at worst. The difference was that he refused to question it." The scientist shrugged, palms turned upward. "I couldn't keep believing what I had been, when all the evidence pointed in the opposite direction."

"That's a good story," Samus said neutrally. "I've heard a lot of good stories."

"Look, I know what I said, what I did... there's no excuse. I dishonored myself. Conduct unbecoming. And I'm not asking you to forgive me... just to give me a chance to put this right."

"What do you want from me, CJ?"

"I want to prove Adam's innocence for you. Just from what I know you're up against here, me just submitting my report and calling it a day isn't going to help you. You're going to need me to testify in front of the panel, if nothing else. Besides, again going on what you've told me, you might have bigger fish to fry than just proving Adam's case. If nothing else, we know my lab was a hit - buildings don't just burn down over a coffee break - so we know you're on the right track with Adam being privy to someone's dirty laundry. I don't know about you, but I want to find out who and what they're hiding. Call it revenge for Frank if nothing else, but I want to see these people go down... and I can only hope that you'll let me help you do it."

"And how do I know you're not working for them?" Samus kept her voice conversational, but the ice in her eyes never thawed. "I never filed a flight plan to come back here. How could you have known to be here, at this spaceport on this day? Unless someone in their organization clued you."

"Uh, actually, you clued me yourself, Sam," CJ pointed out quietly. "You told me when you left that you'd be back in three days local to pick up my final report. I took you at your word. As for the time of arrival, I had no idea. I've been waiting here since oh-dark-thirty, except I went to the main terminal twice for head calls and vending-machine raids. The guy at the front office probably thinks I'm a terrorist or a lunatic by now."

"And you expect me to believe that? Or anything else out of the pack of tales you've told me just now?"

"It doesn't matter what I expect or what you believe. I've told you the whole truth and nothing but. All I can ask is that you see your way clear to letting me help you."

Samus made no reply. Uncomfortable silence hung in the air between the women, tension building like the winding of a rubber band. Who would snap first?

"Look, we've got no time for standing around like this. We both have better things to be doing." Samus turned on her heel, blowing past CJ as though the scientist didn't even exist.

CJ drew a deep breath, head lowered, biting her lower lip. Intellectually, she'd known that her actions carried a high probability of exactly this result, but intellect hadn't prepared her for the gut-punched feeling of watching Samus walk away.

A two-fingered whistle split her ears a few seconds later. "Hey!"

Startled, CJ snapped upright, looking across the tarmac to where Samus stood, hands planted on her hips and a mock-annoyed expression on her face. "Adam's not going to recover himself with you standing out here all day! Come on, unless you want to walk home!"

"But I thought you didn't..."

"Were you not listening? I said _we _have no time to waste. You know, Standard pronoun, indicates two or more people working together?" The peeved look had departed, replaced by the hunter's trademark lopsided grin. "So, _we_ had better get back to work. Unless you were just yanking my tail about helping me...?"

CJ couldn't help the full-blown smile that spread across her face as Samus' words sunk in. "Not in the slightest. Lead the way!"

* * *

They didn't go back to any of their usual haunts, once Samus had checked in and rented a ground vehicle. Working relationship or not, Samus would no sooner have invited a stranger aboard her ship than send Mother Brain a Mother's Day card, and CJ knew better than to suggest that they go back to her apartment. Instead, in deference to the late hour and both their growling stomachs, they had found neutral ground in the form of a small-plates bar in the financial district, a kilometer or so south of the university. The place offered the added benefit of being very lightly patronized, which gave them an entire back table to themselves.

"So, besides your suit and stuff, did you learn anything new on the Cardinal front?"

Samus nodded yes, temporarily unable to speak due to a mouthful of beer. After a moment, she replied, "That I did. Bastards tried to ship-jack me - and on Aliehs, of all places. Half a dozen of them broke into my hangar with heavy artillery. I guess they figured they'd catch me napping."

"I take it they didn't succeed," CJ noted dryly.

"That they did not. They were mercs, and not exactly top drawer at that. The last guy left standing gave up his employers. Surprise surprise, it's our old friends at Cardinal. The merc I interrogated also said his bosses were, and I quote, 'Federation, you don't know how high it goes, all the way to the top.' That makes sense; they'd have to have an in to get past the security at Federated, because I don't think these guys could have broken into a piggy bank on their own."

CJ did not reply, being preoccupied with trying not to aspirate her seafood salad as she tried to laugh and eat at the same time. The resultant contortions earned her a lopsided grin from the hunter. "Please, try not to choke over there. The last person I had to resuscitate wound up with internal injuries..."

"No, I'm good," CJ wheezed. "Sorry about that, you just caught me off guard. Go ahead."

"Anyway, between that and what I knew from the Adam data, I put in a call to a friend of mine in the Admiralty a few days ago. Haven't heard back yet, but I know he's well connected throughout the Forces. If anyone can come up with anything useful, he can."

"All right, so let's see what we have so far," CJ said, as she pulled a notepad out of her backpack. Blanking its surface, she began to write out a data diagram. "From Adam, we have a series of linkages between Cardinal, DFDI and Claimh Solais, all associated with murder, betrayal and revenge. From you, every time you look into the Cardinal group, someone dies. From the mercenary you grilled, we know that Cardinal either has as members or is connected to some very top-level people in the Federation. What we're still missing is names and specifics - which, hopefully, your Admiralty friend can provide us."

Samus nodded in reply. "Right. Once we have a name, we can see about talking to someone in the judge advocate's office and launching a proper investigation, which might even kill two beasts with one round since they'll probably drop the condemnation order if we can prove they ordered it to silence Adam--" The communicator trilled its incoming-call alert. "And that may be him now," she said, and glanced at its display before answering: _"Unknown Contact - Secure Relay."_ With a raised eyebrow, she picked it up. "Speak."

_"Samus, this is Admiral Dane. Can you talk? I don't have much time."_ The line whined and crackled as the other man spoke.

"Of course, sir. Go ahead." She gestured to CJ for a notepad, which the scientist slid across the table to her. "This connection's terrible. Where are you?"

_"I can't say. God in heaven, you have no idea what kind of a wasp's nest you've kicked over on this one, Samus. Cardinal goes further than anyone ever could have imagined. They're after me. I've encrypted this call, but they may even be tracking me now." _

Samus' expression was equal parts determination and apprehension, as she scribbled frantically. "Sir, I need specifics. Who's involved, who are their clients, and who is backing them? And what did they want with Adam?"

_"I don't know what Adam was up to with them, but I do know these people are beyond black. Assassination seems to be their major trade. There seem to be at least five major players, and they have at least two contacts in the Forces. I don't have names, but I know one is in intel. That's as far as I was able to go before they made me. I was able to get my hands on some comms traffic between the major players. I'm sending you the files now."_

"Okay, I see the file transfer," Samus replied. "Anything else?"

_"No. Like I said, this group is blacker than black ops. Even finding this took every resource I had, and it seems it wasn't enough."_ The line whined and clicked again. _"This will be the last communication you get from me, Samus. I'm going underground. Even at that I don't expect to last the week."_

Samus frowned deeply at that. "Sir, if you'll just tell me where to meet you, I can protect you--"

_"Thank you for the offer, your heart is in the right place - but it's too late for that. You need to stay alive and see to it that these people get what's coming to them. I've had a good run, and at least I'll go out fighting the good fight."_

The hunter swallowed hard and took a deep breath, feeling more than a little _deja entendu_. Another major figure in her life, a command presence if not a commanding officer, was resigning himself to dying for her sake, and for the same reason. "I will. I promise you that. If it's the last thing I do, I will take this operation down."

_"That's all I could ever ask of you." _A pause. _"Godspeed, Samus. Farewell."_

"I, uh, I couldn't help but overhear your end of the conversation," CJ said, unsure of her next words. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she mused that dealing with the hunter really was greatly akin to handling land mines. A wrong move now would likely cause Samus to either shut her out or erupt in fury. In the end, she went for the neutral, conciliatory approach. "Sounds like your admiral friend must think an awful lot of you."

Samus did not reply, staring silently at the blinking "Secure connection terminated" indicator on her communicator's display.

"Everything okay?" CJ said softly.

Samus looked up, the loss and guilt clearly written in her expression for just a fraction of a second. Just as quickly, though, that calm, focused mask slammed back into place, revealing nothing of the emotions beneath. "He said that two of the key players are in the Forces. At least one's a spook. I figure they've got to be fairly high up the ranks - Adam said that 'the serpent who stung him wore his crown,' so whoever pulled the trigger has got to be a flag officer. Any ideas?"

"Beats me," CJ said, with a shrug and a baffled expression. "There's only about seven and a half million people in uniform in this Federation, you know. Kind of hard to know 'em all."

"Well, there can't be seven and a half million flag officers in intelligence, so that limits our search if nothing else. Then again, nothing is ringing a bell for me either," Samus replied. "I'll put a query out to my usual info dealers. These people always manage to leave a trail somewhere. Someone will know."

"Sam, I have reservist access, it'll take me all of two seconds to run a search on JIAS," CJ reminded her.

The hunter shook her head no. "I don't dare take that risk. These people are pros. If they were able to get to an old spook like Dane so easily, they'll have you the second you log on, pure magic or not."

CJ thought about that for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. "Good point." Pointing to the communicator, she said, "So what's in the data?"

Samus' response was a hand held up to indicate 'wait a minute,' as she transferred the files from her communicator to a data pad. A moment later, she replied, "A series of communications between the Cardinal players, all of which are identified only by numbers - Cardinal One, Cardinal Two and so forth. Unfortunately everything's in code so I'm not sure exactly what they're referencing, but I think it's a safe bet that these people aren't trading cookie recipes."

"God, this really does look like something from a bad spy vid," CJ cracked, moving to the other side of the table and looking over Samus' shoulder at the messages. "All they need is to have some guy in a black trench coat and fedora saying stuff like 'The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain' or something."

Samus' reply was a snort of amusement, as they both continued to read. "I can't make heads or tails of this," the scientist said several minutes later, with a huff of annoyance as she stood upright and worked the kinks out of her shoulders. "I don't know what any of the damned code words mean. They could be planning anything from regime change to the office playoffs pool. Or cookie recipes, for that matter."

"Ha ha. Wait a minute, here we go," Samus said, pointing to a message further down the list. "From Cardinal Five to Cardinal Actual--"

"So that's their CO," CJ interrupted, which earned her a look of _you think I didn't know that? _from the hunter.

"--Wildfire informatics PH-1076. PH-1076 was the patrol boat the Feds gave me for the BSL mission. So Wildfire has to be the go code for an operation, and informatics meaning it's a cyber strike, and the time stamp matches when I left BSL. This has to be the hit on Adam. Now again, two standard days later, we've got a Fire_watch_ from someone named Blackberry at what looks like your lab at Barnard, but that can't be the actual fire - this is two days again before that."

"No, Firewatch is a Forces-wide information security code," CJ replied. "When a Fed system gets compromised, it phones home - gets on the nearest open network and contacts HQ with its location, and then waits for a self-destruct command." Pointing to the time stamp, she continued, "That's when we started breaking down the data store for analysis."

"But how would they..." A thought occurred to Samus just then. "Wait a minute. Didn't your one colleague say there was an override of some kind in the system? A root set?"

CJ groaned as the realization hit. "Rootkit," she corrected. "Nan and Frank thought they got it all, but it must've still been active up to that point. God damn it."

"And then we have-- wait, this is interesting." Pointing to the next message, Samus continued, "From Cardinal Five to someone named Allegro, ordering Blackberry to be destroyed. That lines up time-wise with the lab fire, but here's what's strange. It's not a Wildfire, and it doesn't go through Actual first."

CJ nodded in affirmation. "Whoever Cardinal Five is, I wonder if he isn't acting alone here. Going outside his chain of command."

"So the question is, who or what is in his chain of command?" Samus asked.

"Well, if we look at the message routing headers, we've got two coming from the Ministry of State, two from Defense, and one from the diplomatic corps," CJ mused. "So we know this goes well beyond the military community. I wouldn't even be surprised if these people were a political hit squad, you know. Like - oh, what was that old flick, _The Ellsworth Proposal?_ Where the bad guys were trying to put a puppet into the Ministry of State so they could set off a war with Egenion and profit from the arms trade?"

"Leaving aside the part where this isn't the vids and this business has very real-life consequences, you probably have a point," Samus replied, a hint of annoyance in her tone. Just as quickly, it was gone, as she signaled the waiter for their bills. "Anyway, I think we'd better call it a night. We're not going to accomplish any more without at least one Cardinal player's name, and frankly I think we're both exhausted. I know I am. Trust me when I tell you that space-lag is a terrible thing."

"Been there, done that, heartily concur. You sure you're okay to drive?" CJ asked, pointing at the empty beer bottle.

"Thanks for the concern, but I'm fine on that front. One's my limit. Besides, my metabolism runs a good bit faster than the average."

"Oh. Right." CJ forced back a grimace, along with a twinge of guilt, at the reminder of Samus' genetic status and her reactions thereto. Old prejudices were dying a bit harder than she'd anticipated. "So, 0700 tomorrow, we'll meet back up and get back to work. I'll call the comp sci department and see if they'll let us borrow a conference room. If not, we'll just go to the library. Either way I'll call you and let you know where to meet."

"And I'll get on the identity end of the search tonight," Samus replied. "With any luck, we'll have a name by local morning."

As they made to go their separate ways - Samus to the parking lot, CJ to the rapid transit terminal - the scientist stopped them both on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. "Listen, I wanted to... well, this is the last I'll say about it, but I wanted to thank you. For the second chance."

"As long as you keep up your end, then you're right," Samus replied neutrally. "By your own admission, you didn't know any better, and I don't believe in punishing people for ignorance. Now, if you act up again, or try to screw me over, be assured that I will personally step on you. But if you were being straight with me about learning your lesson, then that's all that needs to be said of it."

"That's fair. More than fair, considering. And I will not give you any more reason to doubt me - you have my word."

"Good." With the hint of that lopsided smile, Samus added, "Besides, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on it earlier."

"What's that?"

"I didn't correct you for not using my proper name, did I?"

CJ let out a half-laugh as she realized the subtle cue. "Point taken. Goodnight, Sam."

* * *

The compartments and passageways aboard _Hunter III_ were dark, the ship locked down for the night. In the equipment bay, the power suit stood empty in its maintenance chamber, powered down for storage. The master cabin's lone occupant slept soundly, the only signs of life an occasional, quiet snore.

Or not. The hunter's right hand twitched, just a little.

_Smoke billowed through the passageways of the _Claimh Solais_ as Samus, data discs in hand, sprinted aft toward the fighter bays. What little light remained came from the blood red emergency lighting and infrequent blue-white arcs from damaged electrical equipment, giving the place the appearance of some technological version of Hell. Everywhere she looked was death - the gleam of exposed bone and muscle, the dull leather of burns, the blistering horror of radiation exposure, the vacuum-dried mummies left by rapid decompression, and a few remains even her veteran eyes couldn't identify. Through it all, she ran, mindful only of the need to escape before the Space Pirates visited any more destruction upon this charnel house._

_Her brain, to say nothing of her feet, ground to a halt as a corpse rose from the carnage and shambled out into the main space of the compartment. Whatever it had been, it certainly wasn't human now, and she raised her cannon arm, intending to put the poor creature out of its misery. A quick death by particle beam would be infinitely kinder than the slow agonies of asphyxiation or exsanguination._

_The apparition swerved drunkenly and staggered toward her, and she realized with a horrified gasp that it was Adam. Most of his uniform had charred and melted to his skin, and his face had been flayed open, a hand-sized swatch of scalp hanging grotesquely over his left eye. Judging from the trickle of blood-tinged clear fluid that ran down his cheekbone beneath the flap, it might have been hiding an even more unspeakable injury. "Hello again, Lady," he croaked out, pausing to expectorate a large chunk of soot-smeared, bloody material. "Can't say I think too much of your rescue mission."_

_She swallowed convulsively a few times, struggling to find her voice. When she finally managed to speak, it was in a choking whisper. "This isn't real. You aren't real."_

_"Reality, illusion, flesh and blood, or a ghost of the network." Adam shrugged, causing his flesh to buckle disconcertingly. "I'm real to you. For now. Of course, you could be going insane. I can only imagine what they'd say about you if they knew what goes on in your head."_

_"Say your piece and be gone," she said reflexively, falling back on the ancient ritual for dispelling a veil-gone traveler. "I'm already sworn to avenge you. What more do you want of me?"_

_"How much more vengeance can you swear, Lady?" Adam replied, with a ghoulish grin. "Everything you touch is ruined. Everyone who helps you lives under a death sentence. Your human family, your Chozo family, your Federation colleagues. Rundas, Ghor, Gandrayda. Hatchling. Frank in the Tank. Castor Dane. And me, of course. That one's particularly special since you killed me twice over."_

_"Enough, damn you," she snapped, but Adam continued talking as though she had never spoken. "I chose life for you, Lady, do you remember that? I bought into the myth just like everyone else. Our fair warrior, Samus Aran, last Defender of the Chozo. I gave my life so you could live, for the good of the universe. And all I earned, all I saved, was an angel of destruction. A doomed pariah of a dead race, fated to wander the galaxy forever alone, with ruin in her footsteps and death at her side. When we chose, we all chose incorrectly."_

Samus sat bolt upright, cold sweat dripping down the back of her neck as her gaze frantically flickered around the small cabin. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and she was breathing in harsh, ragged gasps. There was a dull ache in her abdomen, and the sick burn of nausea percolated in her chest as she tried to focus on her surroundings.

_Oh hell no, not again,_ she thought with sick dread as she combed fingers through her lank, damp hair. For someone who had lived through as much trauma and horror as she had, some degree of psychological stress was a given; it came as no shock to her that the few dreams she did experience rarely if ever left the realm of nightmare. However, the nightmares had begun cropping up more often and with greater clarity than ever before, sometimes to the point where she was hard pressed to distinguish between the dream and reality. Then too, she wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest to find out that whatever graft versus host condition the anti-X serum had left her with was also playing havoc with her brain chemistry. "Not to speak ill of the dead or anything, but thanks a whole damn bunch, Hatchling," she muttered into the gloom. "I can freeze my ass off on a thirty-degree day, get nauseated faster than the speed of light, and have nightmares worse than a slasher vid. If these are super metroid powers, I'll pass." With a snort of amusement, she added, "And now I'm talking to myself. Shit, maybe Dane's Admiralty buddies were right; I really am cracking up."

"To hell with it," she sighed to herself, brushing her hair back into a reasonably presentable ponytail and pulling on a top, shorts and boots. As an afterthought, she picked up the Paralyzer from the side table. "A walk might clear my head. I need some fresh air anyway."

* * *

The chill night air felt good against her fevered skin as Samus strolled down the streets of the area around the Mandeville spaceport. This was a very different side of the city from the affected pseudo-poverty of the university and the polished upscale business district. Here, the streets were littered with bottles, cans and other trash, bums and addicts huddled in the back alleys, and the businesses ran heavily to bars, fast food joints and all-night stores, with the occasional strip club or brothel thrown in for variety. The bright neon holo-sign of the StarTel flickered in the distance, and she allowed herself a sardonic grin.

A few of the more pathetic street people called out at her, but most simply turned away or dodged aside, put off by the aura of self-awareness and carefully controlled strength she projected. She had taken a fairly large risk coming down here, of course, but she had traveled to far worse parts of the galaxy and emerged unscathed. People like these lived in a world where the only strength was power - physical, criminal, political. She had learned that if you let people know, or just assume, that you wielded more power than they did, they would leave you alone. Most of the time, anyway. The few idiots who had tried to challenge her anyway had all paid for it - all of them with bounty fees, most with jail time, a few with their lives.

As Samus reached the end of the block and made to turn back for the spaceport, a shadow caught her eye, as combat awareness kicked in. Six men, all in black, were following her, not even trying to be subtle about their intent. _And that would be another half-dozen to add to the idiot pile,_ she thought sarcastically. _They have one more block to take off and then I'm dealing them out. A fight might even let me work some angst off._

One block later, there they still were: clearly local gang members, all walking with the swagger of playground bullies. _Well, you're about to get your own candy stolen,_ she thought, as she turned to confront them. "Don't you boys have someplace else you need to be?" she called out defiantly, as her subconscious mind began calculating escape routes and avenues of attack. Six of them, equipped with who knew what, against one of her with no armor and only a stun pistol - in most circumstances, that would be a reasonably fair fight.

"Wow, is chivalry ever dead, fellas," one of the men laughed. "A hot piece of ass like you, walking around at night all by her lonesome in a bad neighborhood? Who knows what kind of awful things could happen? And here we're just trying to help out, and this is what we get."

"I'm sure your Scout masters will be proud of you," she replied. "Goodbye now."

"Oh, I don't think so," the lead goon, a heavyset human with a long greasy ponytail, chuckled. "Word's out about you, bitch. A little bird told us there was good money to take you down. And what do you know, you come right to us, walking right into our turf without a care in the world."

The words struck a sudden chill into Samus' nerves. These weren't your garden variety gang bangers - they were specifically targeting her, and she didn't doubt for a second that she knew just which 'little bird' was paying them. The odds against her had just lengthened significantly. Somewhere, in a small detached corner of her mind, a little voice laughed nastily. _You knew going without your armor was going to get you killed sooner rather than later. And the clock just struck 'sooner.'_

And then she exploded in a whirl of fists and feet, charging at the would-be attackers before they could react. One went down instantly, his larynx crushed by the edge of a hand that smashed into his throat. As he tried frantically to breathe through the ruined remains of his airway, another thug landed next to him, winded by a roundhouse kick to his abdomen. Even as she spun and threw a third over her shoulder, she was backpedaling, reaching for the Paralyzer. Thug number four lined up in her sights as she drew, and the weapon whined as its power cell generated a five-thousand-volt burst, enough to disable practically any un-shielded target. To her dismay, though, the bolt dissipated harmlessly, deflected by what she now knew had to be high-grade body armor, as the second and third attackers rejoined the fight.

_Note to self: if you get out of this alive, go buy a proper pistol instead of that POS,_ the snarky inner voice commented, as she pistol-whipped an opportunistic thug with the weapon before tossing it aside.

The thugs had by now caught on to Samus' combat techniques, and rather than rush her individually as they had been doing, they simply charged _en masse,_ hoping to overwhelm her with sheer numbers. As skilled as she was, she couldn't parry all the blows aimed at her, and she was beginning to fatigue under the stress of the fight and the damage inflicted by those blows that struck home. Worse, the assailants she did manage to put down were largely returning to the brawl, lengthening the odds against her further.

One of the thugs, tall and lightly built, picked up her fallen stun gun. As Samus felled the heavy thug with a knee strike, the other turned the Paralyzer on its owner. The weapon's electrolaser bolt caught her squarely in the back, and not even a Diamont could have resisted the thousands of volts that poured into her nervous system. She dropped bonelessly to the pavement, whimpered once and then lay still.

"Goodnight, princess," the tall thug muttered, with a sarcastic laugh.

"Phew," the heavier-set thug grunted, dusting himself off. "Thought that bitch wasn't ever gonna go down. We got the right one?"

Another of the thugs knelt over the unconscious hunter, removing a small wallet from her back pocket and rifling through the assortment of cards and chips within. A moment later, he nodded, stuffing the wallet into his jacket. "Yeah, it's her."

The heavier man eyed their victim up and down with a lustful gleam in his eyes. "Too bad we don't have more time. You two pick up the casualty. Finish the job and let's get out of here."

The tall thug nodded once before delivering a vicious blow to his target's head. A moment later, the gang melted into the night.

* * *

Author's Notes: Oh dear. This isn't looking good at all. For those wondering if Samus might be acting more than a little out of character at the end, you're right: she's very fatigued, not feeling well, and suffering from an increasingly ugly degree of psychological stress. As a result, she's starting to make some rather erratic decisions, and winds up paying for it here. That situation will come to a head in the next chapter.

In military slang, REMF is a derogatory epithet for someone who sits far behind the line of battle and makes decisions that adversely affect the lives of front-line troops, without ever visiting said front lines to see the impact of his/her decisions. Usually a REMF is an officer, though certain senior NCOs (see also: pogue) can earn the epithet as well. In any case, it stands for Rear Echelon Mother F---er.

In a case of shameless video game plagiarism, Admiral Dane's circumstances (though hopefully not his outcome!) are derived from the "Missing Marines" arc involving RADM Kahoku in _Mass Effect._ Paralleling _deja vu,_ which is something you've seen before, _deja entendu_ (Fr, "already heard") is something you've heard before.

The stun pistol Samus carries here (and later falls victim to) is the same weapon as the "emergency pistol" from _Metroid: Zero Mission_ and the Paralyzer from _Super Smash Bros. Brawl_'s Zero Suit mode (albeit without plasma whip and other such features). It's fine for incapacitating an unshielded target, but that's about all. It doesn't work in vacuum, has a laughably slow recharge time (3 seconds between shots in _Zero Mission_) and doesn't work at all on armored or shielded enemies. Samus herself lampshades its lack of effect in _Zero Mission_'s cutscenes: "All I had for protection was my rather useless emergency pistol..."

For those wondering how Samus got out of her armor between Aliehs III and Tian: according to the _Prime 3_ Logbook entry, the gunship does have an advanced medical system on board. (It'd have to be advanced to deal with the kinds of injuries she routinely suffers!) With proper programming, it could also be capable of performing the armor removal process. Of course, she can also have the procedure done at any Federation medical facility that has an operating room, though she's probably not apt to seek out their services given the current situation.

As always, thank you for reading thus far, and please don't forget to review!


	10. Broken Bird

10. Broken Bird

_Soundtracks: "One Girl in All the World," The Wingless, courtesy of OverClocked ReMix; "Protection," Massive Attack feat. Tracey Thorn, from the titular album._

* * *

As an overcast dawn broke over the streets of Mandeville, a lone baggage handler cycled toward the spaceport, trying rather unsuccessfully to juggle a cup of hot coffee as he rode. If he didn't hurry, he would get caught at the rapid transit stop, and he couldn't afford to be late for work again this week. _Oh no,_ he thought as he approached the intersection, only to see one of the maglev-powered trams blocking his path. _I must start to leave earlier, this is-_

A motion from the nearby alley caught his eye, and he glanced at it. _Probably a rat,_ he thought, but then he noticed that something wasn't quite right – in addition to the usual garbage and other filth, there was a rather lumpy object at the end of the alley, too regular in outline to be a trash bag. His curiosity piqued, he dismounted the bike and approached a bit closer on foot, and the coffee cup dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers as his brain registered what his eyes were seeing.

At the end of the alley, almost invisible among the waste, the body of a young woman lay sprawled on the pavement, badly beaten and quite possibly dead.

The man fumbled in his pockets for his communicator, and then thought better of it, instead adding his stomach's contents to the effluvia in the alley.

* * *

"What've you got?" the triage nurse asked as two paramedics pushed a loaded stretcher through the ambulance bay doors of Thorn Memorial Hospital's emergency center.

"Your favorite, an Ann Nonymous," one of the paramedics cracked. "Standard Human, female, appears mid to late twenties, some guy found her in an alley a few blocks from Metro. Looks like someone roughed her up pretty good – blunt force trauma, cuts and contusions. Unconscious at the scene, stayed that way in the bus, we did a rapid scan and cleared her for spine trauma. Got a neuro score of 9; opens eyes and swats at painful stimuli, makes noise but nothing understandable. Heart rate's brady at 55, sinus rhythm, resps 10 and even, temp 36.2, blood pressure 102 over 64, satting 99 to 100 percent on room air, 18-gauge in the left AC running point-9 at KVO, we pushed four of Narcex in the bus and no dice. No purse, no ID, and here's the really weird part – her hand doesn't scan. We tried three times and got 'no match' every time."

"Dressed like that, it's a fair guess why," one of the residents, a pasty-faced man named Piers Rask, sniped.

Staff nurse Daria Reese glared at him from across the stretcher, as they pushed the patient into a trauma bay and lifted her across to the hospital bed. "Hey, show some respect. She's someone's daughter too."

"Wow, is that ever whacked," the registration clerk said, picking up the patient's limp right hand and pressing it against a portable palmprint plate. "No Match" blinked across the device's display face. "Never seen a total no-scan before. Usually the trade girls and skeevers at least scan with a street name. I'll put her in as Ann Nonymous for now. Maybe start calling cops for missing persons lists, if I get around to it."

"Maybe she's kept," the resident replied, with a leer. "Papi oughta come lookin' for her about any time now. Fine piece like that won't be cheap, he'll be wanting to protect his investment if you know what I mean..."

"You really are a pig, Piers, you know that?" Roger Matheson, the second nursing member of the trauma team, said irritably. "Poor girl gets the shit beat out of her in a bad neighborhood and you automatically assume she's a whore. For all you know she's the Prime Minister's daughter. Like Dari said, a little respect would be nice."

"Well, whoever she is, she's ours now. Let's start another line, bolus the rest of the EMS bag, finger stick for glucose, draw a trauma panel and a genetic screen, start a Foley and get urine for an EDA panel," attending physician Hu Wei said. "Check for injuries, and oh, Daria? Get a rape kit as long as you're down there. God only knows what happened to her to end up in that alley. Let's get another rapid scan too, she could have a cerebral or abdominal bleed."

The thick, leather-like synthetic material of the patient's midriff top and shorts proved quite resistant to the medical team's attempts to cut it off, but eventually both items and her undergarments succumbed, and they log-rolled the now-nude woman off the medics' backboard and onto her right side to inspect the rest of her body for injuries. "Looks like she's been stunned," the resident said, pointing to an ugly red welt, about the size of a fist, between the patient's shoulder blades. "Ton of old scars, too."

Indeed, dozens of scars marred the patient's skin. Some were old and nearly invisible, others appeared fairly recent. One particular collection, in the middle of her back, almost looked to form a pattern reminiscent of a jellyfish. "What the hell does this girl _do_ to get all these?" Wei muttered.

They maneuvered the patient back to a supine position, where the examination continued. Matheson lanced the patient's finger for blood glucose, while Reese started a second widebore IV in the patient's right antecubital space, where the large veins of the arm ran just beneath the skin of her inside elbow. Once the catheter was established and the first of six specimen tubes was greedily sucking dark maroon blood from the line, she looked up from her work. "Tell you what she doesn't do, guys, is juice up. Look at her veins - they're pristine. No tracks, no blowns, no nothing. Not to say she didn't snort, smoke or swallow something, but I'd bet my next paycheck she's never shot it."

Rask nodded at that, and if he had a riposte he kept it to himself. "Hell of a lump on her head, no depressions, crepitus or movement. Minor lacs and abrasions on her hands and knees. Defensive wounds on both forearms and hands. Looks like she might've fought back - there's tissue under her nails. More scars."

From her position at the lower end of the bed, Reese just nodded, preoccupied with setting up her sterile equipment.

"Hey, Dr. Wei, check this out. She's got a Microport." Matheson pointed to the patient's upper chest, where a small circle of skin protruded just below her left clavicle. "We might be able to get an ID off that. They're usually individually registered."

The attending allowed himself a faint crinkle of the eyes, the closest he ever came to a smile during work hours. "Oh, good. At least we'll have _some_ clarity in this case."

"Damn, look at that. No wonder she's out." Glancing up from the glucometer screen, Rask said, "Sugar is 31. Let's push an amp of D50."

"Got it," Matheson echoed, pulling a pre-filled syringe from the resuscitation cart and attaching it to the medics' line. The high-dose intravenous glucose solution swirled slowly through the tubing and into the patient's vein, where it would act to boost her critically low blood sugar level. "D50's in at 0712."

"Good. If that bolus bag's done, let's put up some D5 in a half at 125 for maintenance. We should probably change that EDA to a comprehensive tox screen, too."

Wei nodded in the affirmative. "Do it. Daria, anything on the kit?"

"Thank God for small favors, whoever did this didn't touch her down here," Reese noted, as she threw away her sterile gloves and pulled the sheets up over the patient's body. "No evidence of assault. Or anything else, for that matter," she finished, with another glare to the smart-mouthed resident, who at least had the decency to look properly abashed.

"Doctors, Radiology says they're ready for her in rapid scan," the clerk interjected.

"That's a relief." The attending let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "All right, let's get her over to the scanner. Piers, why don't you close up those lacs on her face when she gets back, and I'll call the case manager to see about finding her a bed. Hopefully someone can find out who she is."

* * *

"What the _hell, _Sam, you're supposed to be here by now," CJ grumbled, staring poisonously at her house comms handset and hovering her thumb over the redial key. It was the fifth time she had attempted to reach Samus in the last fifteen minutes, and her attitude had cycled from annoyed to worried and back to annoyed again. When Samus had first failed to answer CJ's call at 0630, she had dismissed it as poor timing - doubtless the hunter was in the shower, eating, exercising or some other daily preparatory task. As the time interval and the number of unanswered calls grew, though, she began to wonder if Samus was ill, or if she had even made it back to her ship the night before. Suddenly her decision to let the other woman drive home looked like the height of irresponsibility. Why, why had she not insisted that Samus take the rapid transit or hire a cab?

Shaking her head to dismiss the errant fear, she snorted in amusement at her own panicked thoughts. _Probably she's just decided to sleep late and forgot she was supposed to meet me, or decided to blow me off to follow up a new lead,_ she thought. _File it under 'stupid civilian tricks.'_

The intuitive voice at the back of her mind disagreed, though, continuing to nag at her that something wasn't right about the scenario. Long experience had taught her never to ignore it. Samus might have marched to her own cadence most of the time, but she had never to date failed to do something she had said she would do.

"To hell with it," she announced to no one in particular, picking up her purse and checking to make sure her mobile comm and transit pass were inside. "But so help me, if I get there and find out you're having a lie-in, I am _so_ going to kick your ass."

The rapid transit dropped her a few blocks from the spaceport, in one of the seedier neighborhoods that surrounded the complex. She walked rapidly and purposefully to the nearby shuttle drop, but rather than take one of the terminal shuttles, she transferred to the bus that served the employee parking zone and the general aviation complex. A quick survey of the daily-use parking lot turned up Samus' rental vehicle, locked and to all appearances intact. Wherever the hunter was, at least CJ knew she'd made it back to the spaceport safely. "One ass-kicking, coming right up," she muttered, heading for the operations office. A few moments later, she walked inside, waving to get the attention of the lone clerk. "Hi there, can you tell me if someone's docked here? The pilot's name is Aran, she would have just gotten in yesterday..."

"Aran? Yeah, hang on a sec." After a few seconds' fiddling with his computer, he nodded. "Yeah, slip 320-D, system shows they're still here. Paid up through the end of the week." He pointed out the window. "Go down that taxiway, hang a left and it's the tenth on the right. Just watch your step."

Just as the man had said, the gunship still sat on its assigned docking slip, locked up and powered down just as the car had been. CJ rapped her knuckles on the ventral hatch plate, but only echoes greeted her. _So how the hell would you get into this beast if something had happened to someone inside,_ she thought with dismay, staring up at the ship's inert orange bulk. Out of reflex, she pulled the mobile comm out of her purse and selected Samus' entry out of the contact list. To her disappointment, once again the only response was the connection tone, followed by _"The Cosmicom Mobile customer you have reached is currently unavailable..."_

_Well, I'm not going to accomplish anything else here,_ she thought. _May as well head home and get some work done while I wait for her to turn up._

Outside the shuttle stop, she decided to try calling Samus one more time, and just as before, only the automated message replied. However, as she made to hang up the call, she thought she heard a faint chiming tone from somewhere nearby. She cocked her head, communicator still in hand, as she sought out the noise. _Huh, weird, _she thought, and hit the redial key. A moment later, there it was again: barely audible over the street noise, but she could just hear someone's incoming-call chime. She turned her head in the direction of the sound, noting that it seemed to be coming from the nearby alley.

CJ stepped into the cramped alleyway, grimacing as the bilious reek of relatively fresh vomit and old urine assaulted her nose. The source of the first stench she stepped gingerly over, noting the smeared umber-colored stains of dried blood on the duracrete pavement. Off to one side, she noted a discarded stun pistol, and- _There it is._ A mobile communicator peeked out from under a pile of trash._  
_

Ignoring the general admonishment not to touch an object of unknown provenance, she squatted down and picked the communicator up. Clearly it hadn't been here long, as its energy cell still reported a full charge. Its face displayed the legend _"10 Missed Calls - 3 New Messages."_ Intrigued, she opened the calls menu, and as the screen refreshed to display the five most recent entries, she felt like vomiting herself.

_"Missed - CJ Mobile. Missed - CJ Mobile. New message - CJ Mobile. Missed - CJ Home. New message - CJ Home."_

She took several deep breaths to steady her nerves, and then dialed a three-digit code on her own communicator. A moment later, she heard the bleep of a connection, and a professionally calm voice answered. _"Emergency Services."_

"Hi. I need to talk to the police... my name is Cameron Donovan, and I think my friend's been kidnapped."

* * *

Holding a cup of the steaming, corrosive beverage that passed for hospital coffee in one hand, Roger Matheson leaned over the Emergency Department unit clerk's desk. "Any word on our mystery girl?" he asked.

The clerk shook her head no, minimizing her multiscreen and flipping her headset's microphone up to deactivate it. "Nothing. So far I've tried Mandeville, Tarenton, Inkari, and the Feds. Nobody has anyone matching her description on the missing lists."

Matheson nodded once, unsurprised but a bit dismayed all the same. "Just one more piece of weird in this case, huh?"

"Yeah, no lie. She's too clean to be street, so how come no one's lookin' for her?"

"My thoughts exactly." The nurse sighed, and chugged back the rest of his coffee, throwing the cup into the trash. "All right, back to the Pit."

The desk clerk snorted at that. "Amen, brother," she said as she flipped her headset back on again. "Maybe just nobody's noticed she's gone yet. I'll keep at it, if we don't get too slammed today."

"Figured you would. Keep me posted, all right?" He tapped the in-house communicator clipped to the waistband of his scrub uniform as he walked away.

A quick stroll across the busy department space took him to Room 10, the isolation bay in which they'd placed the mystery patient after stabilizing her condition. The one-liter bag of D5 1/2 had run down to about a quarter of its capacity, and he made a mental note to hang a replacement. Otherwise, she looked exactly the same as she had when she came in: physiologically stable, apparently quite healthy despite some borderline blood and electrolyte results, and completely out of it. Currently, she was huddled beneath the sheet, her lean figure curled into as tight of a fetal position as she could manage with the collection of catheters and monitors attached to her body, and even from the doorway he could see that she must be freezing cold.

The desk clerk had been absolutely right when she'd described the patient as too clean for the street. Everyone in the emergency center dealt with the homeless, addicts and prostitutes on a daily basis, and to varying degrees, they all fit a certain physical profile: unwashed, malnourished and in general ill health. This woman, on the other hand, appeared well groomed, well nourished, appropriately if somewhat lightly dressed before they'd cut her clothing off, and exceptionally physically fit. She also must have had access to some fairly high-quality health care in the recent past, to account for the presence of a functioning central venous access system. What she would need such a device for, however, eluded him. The two major indications for central lines were chemotherapy and total parenteral nutrition, and nothing they'd elicited about her condition suggested either cancer or gastrointestinal disease as an etiology.

"All right, Ann, who are you really?" he murmured, studying the mystery patient's features. Even with the collection of bruises, scrapes and the skin closure strips marring her face, and the general dishevelment common to most trauma patients, there was no mistaking what must have been a very attractive woman. Beautiful, even, once she'd been cleaned up.

With a shake of his head, Matheson stepped out to the hallway and unclipped the house comm from his waist. He dialed the code for department overhead paging, and spoke into the device. "Available PCA to room 10, please."

A minute later, one of the volunteer patient care assistants appeared around the corner. "Hi, Rog. Need help with something?" she asked cheerfully.

"Yeah, room 10. Can you get her a bed bath, and some clean linens and a couple of warmed blankets? She can't possibly be comfortable like that."

The teenager glanced through the window, and her eyes widened as she took in the pathetic form shivering beneath the single sheet. "Oh my God, the poor thing. Yeah, I'll get one of the other girls to help me. Be back in two ticks."

Meanwhile, in the cramped confines of the staff lounge, Daria Reese was idly flipping through the entertainment channels, intermittently munching on some sliced fruit from her lunch bag. "Hey, put the news on, would ya?" one of the other staff nurses asked, walking into the room and dropping down on their battered old couch.

"Sure." She flipped to the local news broadcast with a shrug. Onscreen, the anchor was saying with a practiced expression of concern, _"And in local news, police are asking for your help in solving a high-profile disappearance. A police spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, has identified the victim as-"_

Reese nearly choked on her fruit slice as she saw the missing person's mug shot. "Holy Hannah, that's her! That's the girl in 10!"

_"-was last seen in the financial district last night. Police say they suspect foul play, but no suspects have yet been identified in the case. If you have any information, please call the Mandeville Police Department tip line at-"_

The broadcast continued playing over the bang of the door as Reese sprinted through the security hallway and out toward Room 10. Dr. Wei, Dr. Rask, a case manager and a pair of patient care assistants were in the room as she arrived. "Guys, I know who she is," she blurted, pointing at the patient.

Dr. Wei shrugged at Reese's pronouncement. "We're hoping she can tell us herself. She's waking up." And indeed, the patient was, blinking up at them with wide, confused eyes. "Tia'la kolikelu eleose?" she whispered in a lilting, birdsong-like language, her gaze flicking around the room.

"Ma'am, we can't understand you," the resident said.

The patient pulled a disgusted face. "Sorry. Wrong language. Hospital, right?"

"That's right, you're in the Emergency Center at Thorn Memorial," Dr. Wei said. "Can you tell us your name and date of birth, please?"

"Samus Aran, 8.6.2000. And before you ask, today is 3.4.2032, though I'm not certain of the time. I assume this hospital is in Mandeville on planet Tian, unless the guys who jumped me moved me someplace else while I was out."

The staff all looked at each other in shock. _"We've got a live one here," _Rask mouthed to the aide, rolling his eyes in disbelief. Reese shot him a poisonous scowl.

"Good. Patient alert and oriented times three." The attending scribbled a few notes on his chart. "Is there anyone else who can vouch for your identity?"

Samus frowned a bit at the question. "Yes, there's CJ – Cameron Donovan, she's a computer scientist at the university. What, did they take my wallet too?"

"They did, but the more pressing concern is that we weren't able to find a palmprint signature for you," Dr. Wei said gently. "We scanned your hand three times and never were able to match it."

"What hand?"

The medical staff all looked at each other in confusion. "Well, yours, of course."

Samus closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath. "No, which hand _of mine_ did you try scanning?"

As the sad realization dawned on all of them, Rask muttered, "Your right."

"And it never occurred to you that not every sentient creature in the galaxy uses the same appendage to sign things. Here, give me that." Taking the scanner from the case manager, Samus pressed her left hand to the touch area, and the device bleeped, indicating a successful scan. "See?"

The looks on the faces of the staff members ranged from self-recrimination to acute embarrassment as the case manager nodded in confirmation.

"Good. So, now that that mystery's been cleared up, who do I talk to so I can get myself out of here?"

"That's really not a good idea at this time, Miss Aran," Dr. Wei replied. "You've suffered some significant head trauma, and your blood sugar was frighteningly low when we admitted you. Moreover, the rest of your blood work isn't exactly what I'd like to see. Can you tell us if you're suffering from any kind of infection, or some other health condition that would alter your immune system?"

Samus' response was a half-nod, half-shrug. "The blood sugar normally runs low if I don't eat on a regular schedule. I have a fast metabolism. Infection, I don't think so. I feel fine, except for being freezing cold and having a splitting headache. Unless, maybe - a few weeks ago I did run into a new infectious organism on a planet-side job. Federation medical people gave me an experimental serum to treat it. They said my bone marrow is screwed up because of it - a graft versus host problem, they called it. I'm sorry I'm not at liberty to say anything else, that part of the mission was classified."

The physicians exchanged sour looks at that. "Hmm. In any case, we'd like you to stay in the Observation Unit for at least 24 hours to make sure you don't have any lasting damage from the head injury..."

"No deal," Samus cut them off. "I know what a concussion feels like. This isn't one. Besides, I'm on a case at the moment, and I have to appear at trial in a little less than one local day. I have a pretty good idea that the bangers who did this were paid off to stop me from attending that trial. If I stay in here, that just plays right into their game. I'll sign the waivers, whatever your legal people want, but one way or the other I'm leaving."

"This is completely against medical advice, and in any case you'll need to find a second person to agree to take responsibility for you if you do decide to leave," the case manager objected. "We would be legally liable if we discharged you unsupervised."

"I won't be," Samus countered. "CJ will co-sign for me. Someone give me a communicator, I'll call her right now." With a lopsided smirk, she added, "She's probably worried sick about me anyway."

* * *

Four hours later, the object of the conversation was hovering around Samus like a human version of a Mellow as she escorted the hunter back to her apartment. "Here, come on in and sit down, take the big chair, it's a lot more comfortable. You probably want some other clothes to change into. I'm sorry I couldn't get anything of yours, your ship's locked up tighter than the Federal Treasury, but you fit into my PT sweats okay the last time. No, don't get up, you stay right there, I'll get you a blanket and some hot tea…"

True to Samus' prediction, CJ had arrived at the hospital within about ten minutes of her call, with an entourage of local police in tow. After signing Samus out of the hospital, the locals had escorted them both to the downtown police precinct, where Samus was able to give them a very detailed description of the would-be hitmen who had executed the failed attempt on her life. Between the reaction of the police to her information - "We've dealt with this gang before, and I assure you we'll be putting an end to their operations," Lieutenant Sanderson had said with an air of deadly finality - and the realization that the thugs could probably lead her to Cardinal, the hunter was feeling positively upbeat, so much so as to tolerate CJ's mother hen routine.

"Oh, and I found your communicator too," CJ said as she returned to the living room with an armful of blankets and clothing. "It's in my purse. Hold on, I'll—"

Her words came a moment too late, as Samus had already headed for the kitchen. "Excellent," she replied, taking the device back and scrolling through its list of messages. "I thought for sure I'd lost the damned thing. You went through my calls, it looks like."

CJ nodded in response. "That was how I found out it was your comm. There are about a dozen messages from me on there. I had no idea where you were. Still wouldn't if I hadn't walked past that alley and heard the ringing."

In another situation, Samus might have upbraided the scientist for the invasion of privacy, but CJ's actions had probably saved her appearance in Adam's trial, if not her life. For now, she had other things to worry about. "Damn. My information broker never called back." With a frown, she added, "I think we can safely add him to the list of Cardinal victims."

"Doubt it," CJ countered. "The lists of flag officers are public record; they're all Grand Council appointees. Cardinal would have to be insanely, ridiculously paranoid to put out another hit just for looking that up."

Samus made no comment, despite her suspicions that someone in Cardinal had done exactly that. "Did you manage to find anything else while I was out?"

In reply, CJ pulled two sets of printouts from her purse, waving them in the air. "Boy, did I ever. I got to thinking while I was waiting for you to turn up, and I realized that as good as these Cardinal people are, they can't silence the entire news media. If assassination is their major stock in trade like your admiral friend said, it's gotta turn up in the news eventually. Plus, Cardinal wouldn't be acting every time an unfriendly politico got bumped off; they'd be selective, protecting specific interests, and probably associated with military activities, since they specifically targeted Adam…"

Samus just nodded, having learned not to interrupt CJ when she was on a logic spree.

"So, while you were working with the render artist, I spent some quality time on the library nets. I remembered a few of these happening, because I was on deployment for two of them, but the more I looked, the more I found. Read 'em and weep."

The hunter frowned as she thumbed through the stack. "CJ, these are all old newsprints. What's this have to do with anything?"

"Watch." The scientist reclaimed the pile from Samus, arranging the stories by date, and laying one of Admiral Dane's communication transcripts between each. "Now what do you see?"

As she scanned the array of articles, Samus fought not to gasp in shock as she realized the impact of what CJ had discovered. A political story headed the top of each stack – usually a scandal of some variety. A Cardinal message followed, and then the next story detailed a Space Pirate atrocity, followed up by a Defense Forces deployment to the affected area. The pattern repeated dozens of times across the stacks, representing a span of ten or eleven galactic cycles.

"Cardinal isn't a black op, it's a spy ring," she breathed.

CJ nodded, but the half-frown on her face indicated that Samus had missed part of the picture. "Yes and no. It's a spy ring in the service of political interests. Every time some member of the ruling coalition gets his ass in a sling, Cardinal leaks a Defense Forces weakness to the Space Pirates. Pirates raid the place, inflict a suitable number of casualties, and then everyone drops what they're doing to denounce the Space Pirate menace, and they completely forget about whatever scandal might have happened before."

"Dirty politicians kill to stay in power, news at 23:00," Samus cracked. In a much more serious tone, she continued, "This goes across more than one government, though. You'd think someone would have tried to clean house at some point."

"Probably Cardinal's clients operate through intermediaries," the scientist replied. "If you fire a junior secretary for corruption every so often, nobody notices the rot at the core."

Samus nodded in disgust. She'd seen the usual pattern of government corruption far more times than she cared to consider over her career. It sickened her to think that the Federation might have fallen into the same decay.

"And that brings me to one interesting point... Don't take this the wrong way, but you know that you and Adam are all over this pile?"

Samus picked up the stack from the second month of 2026, feeling a certain twinge in her chest as she looked at the headlines. "Naval Convoy Ambushed at Nereid Traverse." "Space Pirate Holocaust – Thousands Murdered in Cold Blood, Navy Spokesman Says." "Bounty Hunter Sole Survivor of Nereid Massacre." "Grand Council Orders Third Fleet to Nereid Sector – 'Their Sacrifice Will Not Be in Vain,' Prime Minister Says."

And atop the stack rested a message, from Cardinal Four to Cardinal Actual, with a short note: "Cardinal Five is exposed. Spoke with CO of TF Aegis this AM, he knows where bodies are buried. Recommend neutralizing this threat."

"Some must live and some must die," she murmured.

"Run that by me again?"

"Human Adam. That was the battle where he died," Samus said simply. "Task Force Aegis was our battle group – the _Claimh Solais, _the _Dunkirk,_ the _Paul Young_ and some supply ship. We were on a reconnaissance mission, and we were ambushed in force by Space Pirates. It was clear from the word go that the Pirates were giving no quarter, so he ordered me to take the intel and run. He said 'Some must live and some must die. I'm ordering you to live.' Sometimes I still wonder if it shouldn't have gone the other way around."

"Oh," CJ replied, somewhat abashed.

Picking up the message from Adam, Samus continued, "He must have found out about the ring. He blew the whistle. And then... they did _this_... to silence him." She looked across the table at CJ, an expression of mingled fury and horror spreading across her face. "It was a setup all along. I'll bet there was never any intel in the Crux Sector we didn't already have. They just needed an excuse to send him into Space Pirate territory. Four ships and three thousand-odd sailors and Marines... all to kill one man and make it look like an accident."

A long silence fell in the kitchen. When Samus spoke again, her voice carried a harsh, flat tone CJ had heard only once before. "Can you prove this?"

The scientist shrugged in reply. "I just did."

"Before a judge advocate? Can you go to court and prove this beyond reasonable doubt?"

"Given a few days, I—" CJ started to say, but Samus cut her off. "We don't have a couple of days; we have slightly less than ten hours local. Yes or no: can you help me pull this off?"

CJ stared into the hunter's eyes, remembering the challenge that had capped their first meeting. Then, Samus had asked her to perform a professional miracle. Now, she was asking for another, in a field of endeavor that CJ claimed barely a passing familiarity with, and with consequences that ranged far beyond the deletion of an AI. If they failed, they would be galactic outlaws, under sentence of treason and pursued by the full might of the Federation, and that was the best case scenario.

Was she prepared to roll the dice again, with all three of their lives at stake?

CJ squared her shoulders and grinned. "Bet your boots I can."

* * *

Much later that evening, CJ walked through the apartment, as was her habit every night before retiring. A soft snore from the pull-out sofa drew her attention, and she smiled as she spotted the figure sleeping there, remembering what a battle it had been to even convince her to stay over.

They had been working through the list of flag officers CJ had surreptitiously obtained from the local library nets, using her electronic warfare skills to spoof the system into thinking she was a low-level staffer in a political lobbyist's office. With that in hand, she had gone to the military's joint information access system to obtain the officers' service jackets, this time disguised as a "white hat" intrusion security test. Using both data sets, they had been able to narrow down the list of Cardinal candidates to half a dozen officers, all of whom either worked in or had ties to the Defense Forces Department of Intelligence, and who had served that department in or before 2026.

"Hey, Sam, look at this," CJ said at one point, holding up a service jacket. "You notice something weird here?"

"What's that?" Samus replied, taking the dossier and skimming over it. A photo of a thin, acerbic-looking man with disturbingly pale gray eyes stared back at her.

"Don't you think it's strange that they would send a one-crown, and a DFDI one-crown at that, to clean up the mess at BSL? That operation shouldn't have gone above company grade, an O-3 or O-4 at max, and it should have been a straight green op. Why send a spook to do a Marine's job?"

"That's easy," Samus countered, leaning back in her chair. "I didn't know it then, but BSL was stuffed with black projects. The paranoids at DFDI wouldn't want anyone they didn't personally hand-select getting so much as a sniff of their precious secrets. Someone probably coughed up a pellet when they found out there was a bounty hunter poking around."

CJ thought about asking Samus to explain the unfamiliar idiom, and then decided against it; the connotation if not the exact meaning was easy enough to derive. "Still doesn't track," she said. "You still don't need a flag officer, and besides, this Renard guy doesn't look like he'd know field work if it bit him. Look at his record; it's all signals intelligence and diplomatic-cover stuff. This guy should be sitting behind a desk at some nice, cushy embassy somewhere. So, what's a REMF like him doing on a field mission with a bunch of jarheads in the galactic boonies?"

"Either thinking he's got to prove himself, make his bones on a field op, or prove that he still knows how to do the job," Samus mused. "Or, BSL was holding one of his closet's resident skeletons and he went out there to bury it."

"Logical enough, if black ops was their business. Again, though, what's a desk jockey doing around biowarfare research?"

"True. Or, the skeleton isn't a skeleton per se, it's a person..." Samus said, which sentence CJ finished. "Or an AI."

"My thought exactly. Which means," Samus said, flipping back through Admiral Dane's transcripts, "that Renard just might be Cardinal Five. He's the one Cardinal Four said was exposed, that set off the Nereid massacre. He's also the one who called the Wildfire code on Adam, and again on your lab, when we thought he was going outside his chain of command. Adam blew the whistle on him once before, and got killed for it. Now, Renard finds out from the mission logs that Adam is still alive as the memograph donor for AICAS-129, which sets off this most recent spree. I'd be willing to bet that he was behind the Federated Shipyards raid and the people hunting down Admiral Dane, too. He's not going to stop at anything until Adam is destroyed. Silence isn't good enough for that kind of person - they want _permanent_ assurance that their secrets aren't going to haunt them."

"Jesus, you're right," CJ whispered.

"I'll make a call to the JAG office first thing in the morning," Samus said, with a scowl at the admiral's photo. "There are still people who owe me favors there. I'll arrange to have an advocate sit in on tomorrow's hearing." She stifled a yawn behind the back of her hand as she finished speaking. "I should probably be going. We've got an early morning tomorrow."

"And you're drop dead tired, you've had a concussion, you're on pain medication, and every half-ass tough guy in the city is gunning for you," CJ pointed out. "Letting you drive across town at this hour? Hmm, let me think about that... no."

Samus frowned in response. "I'm not concussed, and the pain pills wore off hours ago, not that they'd do anything to me anyway."

"Frankly, I'd have less of a complaint if you were looped off your gourd right now." The scientist's face had taken on that earnest set again, and the hunter wondered why she had even bothered to argue. "You're even more impaired driving fatigued than you are driving under the influence. Scientific fact. It even happens to AI systems - if you don't take them offline to refresh their memory stores every so often, they start throwing errors all over the place. Put one on top of the other and it's a slam dunk. Bitch all you like, my friend, but you're going nowhere tonight."

"And you're on very thin ice right now," Samus replied. "I don't think you're in any position to be giving me orders."

The words were delivered in a mild, conversational tone, but CJ heard the implicit warning in them. If she pushed any harder, Samus would either snap at her or simply blow her off, and neither outcome would bode well for her safety. "Okay, how about I'm very concerned for your safety and that of other drivers, and I believe that the safest and smartest course of action would be for you to stay here. Or, if you absolutely feel like you have to stay on your ship, I'll drive you there and stay over with you."

"That's a little presumptuous. What makes you think my ship has more than one cabin?"

CJ shrugged in reply. "I'll bring a sleeping bag and crash on the deck. It'd be far from the worst field rack I've slept in. Besides, I'm still not convinced that you're recovered from that beating, and I would be remiss if I let you go back to your ship by yourself."

Samus looked like she might have wanted to push the situation into a full-blown argument, but then she let out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her right thumb and index finger. "Fine. Whatever makes you feel better."

That had been half an hour earlier, and now, Samus had dropped off to sleep almost immediately, once again in that tightly curled ball CJ had seen before. For as tall as the hunter was, CJ thought, the position should have rendered her back muscles a solid mass of cramps, and yet she looked oddly comfortable, as though being squashed into a meter-wide sphere was something she did every day. Pushing the strange thought aside, she brushed that one stubborn lock of hair out of the other woman's face. "G'night, Sam," she murmured, checking the door locks one last time before heading to her own room for the night.

* * *

CJ awakened several hours later to a piercing shriek from the living room. Whoever or whatever had cried out, it sounded like the scream of the damned. "The hell?" she shouted, reflexively snatching a flashlight and her sidearm from under her night table and leaping out of bed, her brain instantly switching into combat gear as adrenaline surged into her bloodstream. Rapidly and methodically, she swept the bedroom, the hallway, the bath, and then out into the living area.

A shape flickered in her peripheral vision as she stepped out past the sofa, and the beam of the flashlight lit up the corner as CJ pivoted around and took aim. "FREEZE! On the ground, hands-" She stopped in mid-sentence as she realized that the figure in her sights was Samus, who had backed herself as far into the corner as possible and was rocking back and forth against the walls, emitting soft keening noises like a badly beaten puppy.

Blowing air out through her nose, she lowered the pistol and activated the room lights.

"God Almighty, Sam, I almost shot you! What the hell happened?"

Samus remained in her corner, continuing to rock and whimper as though she'd never heard the scientist's voice, and her eyes resembled nothing so much as chips of ice, frozen in a stupefied, thousand-meter stare. Fear congealed in CJ's gut as she remembered the last time she'd seen that look, six years ago in the jungles of Satori, on the face of a company commander who had put his own sidearm to his head and was screaming that the monkeys had come to kill them all. It was impossible to get the smell of vaporized brain tissue out of combat utilities.

"Hey, come here," CJ whispered, deactivating her weapon and stuffing it into the waistband of her shorts before kneeling next to Samus, pulling the terrified older woman into her arms. "Take slow, deep breaths and listen to my voice, okay? Whatever you're seeing, what you're hearing, it's not real. It's just a memory gone bad. It can't hurt you. You are safe and you are not alone."

Slowly, slowly, the manic blankness drained from Samus' eyes, and she finally looked up at CJ, sick dread still radiating in her expression. "Where am I? Who are you?" she whispered.

"I'm CJ, I'm your friend. The computer expert who's helping you get Adam out of AI jail. You're in my apartment, and we're in Mandeville on Tian." Off the hunter's confused look, she continued, "Do you know the date and time? Can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?"

"3.4.2032. Time... ugh, it's got to be after midnight, so I guess it's really 3.5. The Prime Minister is T... Teo-something, hang on, I'll get it... Teoctian. He's a Regulan, I know that."

"Good." CJ did not release her hold on Samus, ignoring the clammy droplets seeping through her t-shirt. "Keep breathing slow and easy. I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying right here with you."

It took exactly one minute and seventeen seconds for Samus to regain her composure, and CJ felt it coming even before then, as the hunter's spine stiffened and the tension returned to her muscles. She pushed CJ away, standing up and turning her back to the room. "Leave me alone," she said, her voice hoarse and flat but no less forceful for that. "You shouldn't have seen this."

"Seen what? Sam, you had a flashback. Human brains do that – hell, AIs do that. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yes, it is – I should be ashamed of my lack of discipline," she continued in the same flat tone. "A fault, a weakness. Out there, someone could break me with it, and I would deserve it. Only a weakling would break down like that."

"You're not undisciplined, and you're not weak," CJ replied. "Even the toughest warriors in the galaxy get combat shock. It's just as much a disability as being wound-"

Samus whipped around, fury etched across her face. "I DON'T have a DISABILITY!" she bellowed, startling CJ into stepping back.

"Okay, that was a bad choice of words," the scientist said, raising her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "All I'm saying is, the fault, if there is any, is that you haven't had it treated. Would you walk around with a sucking chest wound and think yourself weak for not being able to breathe?"

The hunter made no reply. Only the stress-speeded rise and fall of her chest proved that she was not, in fact, a statue.

CJ remained silent as well, walking into the kitchen and loading the coffee maker.

"What are you doing?" Samus asked.

"Well, apparently you're going to stand in the corner all night, and no way I'm going to leave you alone like that," CJ replied, starting the device's brew cycle. "And all-nighters without caffeine just suck 'nads, if you'll pardon the crudity."

Samus frowned at that, irritated and yet strangely touched by the scientist's behavior. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, a bit more harshly than she'd intended.

"I'm not entirely sure, because God knows I wouldn't do it for anybody else who behaved the way you do," CJ retorted. She poured herself a cup of coffee, knocking back a large slug of the still-scalding liquid as she started ticking points off on her free hand. "You're spectacularly rude, you're overbearing, you're arrogant as hell, you demand miracles even when there are none to be had, you smack around everyone who tries to help you, and frankly, that's all on a good day."

Given how much worse Samus had heard over the years, she wasn't quite sure why the words stung so sharply. Hotly, she replied, "So I'll ask again: if I'm so awful, why are you trying to help me?"

"Because for some cracked-out reason, I think you're worth helping. Maybe it's that you never ask something of another that you don't ask more of yourself. Maybe it's because in my world, you're allowed to be a bitch if you have the chops to back it up, and you do. Maybe it's because I know some of the kinds of shit they've piled on you. Don't get me wrong, I never had to blow up a planet or anything like that, but the Corps sent me to some damned scary places, and I had my share of dark nights. Maybe it's because I think the galaxy's a hell of a lot better off with you in it, and I'll be damned if you take off on my watch. Maybe it's because I still think I owe you for being such an ass last week. Maybe it's human compassion. Maybe it's just because I like you."

Samus fell silent for several seconds. "Oh." _And that just might be the understatement of the galactic cycle,_ she thought.

"Yeah." CJ sighed, getting up to retrieve the coffee pot and a second cup. "Anyway, I'm not the one with the problem right now. You are. So, do you want to sit down and talk about it, or do you want to stand there feeling sorry for yourself?"

After a moment's hesitation, Samus joined her.

* * *

Author's Notes: And the bad 48-hour run continues for Samus - beat up, sick and getting sicker, depressed, and now with a nasty case of flashbacks - but the case is cracked, and she's figured out that she has at least one friend left in the universe.

The opening scene in the EC is a pretty accurate depiction (accounting for advances in medical technology) of what you'll experience on a typical acute emergency visit. Patients with head injuries are assessed according to the Glasgow Coma Scale, a 15-point measure of consciousness measured by the patient's ability to sense pain, open their eyes, and respond to verbal commands. Popular IV replacement fluids mentioned in this chapter include 0.9% saline (spoken "point nine"), an all-purpose fluid for rehydration, fluid bolus and blood transfusion, and D5 1/2 (spoken "dee five in a half"), 5% dextrose in 0.45% saline, which adds metabolic support to the formula. D50, following the same rubric, is 50% dextrose in sterile water; it's given as unit-dose ampoules or pre-loaded syringes to correct critically low blood glucose levels. IV lines that aren't actively infusing may be disconnected and "locked" with saline to stop them from clotting off, or left with the drip running at "KVO," a very slow drip that's just enough to Keep the Vein Open. "Narcex" is my in-universe analogue to Narcan (naloxone), a reversal agent commonly used in suspected and known opioid overdoses (i.e. heroin, morphine and codeine derivatives, fentanyl and derivatives, etc). In addition to specific drug levels that can be ordered on an _a la carte_ basis, there are two major toxicology screens used in emergency care, the rapid urine EDA (Emergency Drugs of Abuse) that looks for six common classes of street drugs, and the comprehensive urine/serum toxicology panel that gives specific analysis of everything you might have in your bloodstream.

Test Your Medical IQ! How long did Samus spend unconscious in the EC? First correct answer and rationale gets kudos in the next chapter's notes. :-)

The outfit that got cut off in the EC was one of those sports-bra-and-shorts numbers Samus is so fond of in Nintendo's official artwork (see also _Zero Mission, Super,_ _Fusion_ and the manga).That's supposed to be Chozo that she wakes up speaking. Standard might have been the first language she learned as a child, but she would have spent from age three to 14 predominantly speaking Chozo. It's reasonable that she would lapse back into it under duress. Some of the unusual figures of speech she uses throughout the story point back to the same derivation. Mellows are the ever-annoying tiny flying enemies from early in Brinstar in _Zero Mission_ and _Super_; their habit of hovering just above you, usually at an angle your gun can't reach, and dive-bombing you in mass quantities grants them a certain degree of Goddamned Bats status (tm TVTropes). The manga did make mention of Samus having some post-traumatic stress issues, but handled the idea so appallingly badly that I refuse to cite it here. (If you really want to know, you'll have to read it yourself. I promised DrkVrtx I would never speak of That Scene again.)

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing!

_Edited 9/7: added the chapter soundtrack information. Enjoy!_


	11. Objection!

11. Objection!

_Soundtrack: "Worthy of Survival," Bear McCreary, from the Battlestar Galactica Season 2 soundtrack.  
_

* * *

"Good morning again," CJ said with a cheerful wave as Samus approached the front entrance of the Federal Building in downtown Mandeville. They had split up briefly that morning, with CJ going to the gym to exercise, and Samus back to her ship to shower and change. Neither of them had received any great quantity of sleep the night before, not the least of the reasons being the night's events and their discussion thereof. As a result, Samus was largely running on caffeine and willpower, and it showed in the tightly drawn set of her features. CJ, on the other hand, appeared bright-eyed and upbeat, a condition Samus considered to be nothing short of freakish.

"Says you," the hunter grumbled, but there was the hint of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "Appointment with the JAG's in ten minutes. Let's go meet the man and get this over with."

CJ stopped her just outside the Federal Building steps. "Everything okay?"

Samus' reply was a derisive snort, but the icy gleam in her eyes belied the dismissive response. "I know what'll make me feel better, and that's to run these bastards over in this hearing."

The scientist laughed at that. "Woman after my own heart. All right, boss, lead the way."

A few minutes' walk took them through the secured entrance, where the Federation Police guard looked to be half a second from asking Samus for her autograph, and up to the fourth floor. The judge advocate's office was a sparse, militarily neat affair, with synthetic wood-grained furniture and a yeoman who eyed them up and down with professional boredom. "El-tee'll see ya 'n a min," he mumbled through a mouthful of pastry. "Hava seat 'f ya like."

Both Samus and CJ remained standing, one with hands in pockets, the other at parade rest.

The object of the conversation appeared a few minutes later, nearly invisible behind a stack of legal pads. "Ms. Aran, Dr. Donovan, it's a pleasure to meet you," the officer said, carefully depositing his burden on an empty desk before sticking out a hand to shake. "Lieutenant Joseph Hazan, with the Judge Advocate Corps."

The scientist began laughing, raising her hands in denial. "Please, nobody calls me Dr. Donovan unless I'm in trouble or they're trying to sell me something," she said. "Just CJ is fine."

"CJ it is, then," Lieutenant Hazan chuckled, but then his expression turned much more serious. "I already read the brief Ms. Aran sent over. If half of what's in here is true, the two of you may have saved a hell of a lot more than just a rogue Navy AI. I hardly believed it when I first looked - black operations, spy rings, government conspiracy and murder..."

"I assure you it's all true," Samus said, her tone businesslike. "I'm not in the habit of making false accusations, nor would I ask anyone else to do so."

"Fair enough." Hazan cleared his throat. "So, I thought we'd quickly go over the order of proceedings here. This will be an adversarial hearing, meaning that there will be a prosecution and a defense, but instead of a jury, there will be a panel of three officers who will serve as judges. We'll present our evidence and the prosecution will present theirs, and at the end the judges will render a decision."

"Doesn't sound too different than criminal court," Samus mused. "What do you think our chances look like?"

Hazan shrugged at that. "I think we'll be fine on the conspiracy side. There's always the risk that someone will try to claim galactic security as a defense, but frankly I don't think that will hold much water with the current ruling coalition in the Council. As for your rogue AI, that's always a crapshoot - even in this day and age, people tend not to be too big on artificial intelligence, especially if it's suspected of being rogue already."

CJ nodded in assent. "Most people really don't understand it, and watch way too much bad holovid besides. They think that anything with more computing power than your average communicator is going to go rogue and murder or enslave the entire galaxy if you so much as look at it cross-eyed..."

Samus kept silent, thinking of the many rogue intelligences she had dealt with over her career, and only too aware of the depredations of Mother Brain and the corrupted Aurora Unit 313. Even allegedly stable AI didn't rank highly in her books, as evidenced by the suicide missions AU 242 and 217 had each assigned her in the past. Lost in memory, she didn't hear much of the remaining conversation.

"...so our case is solid on an evidentiary basis. There's just one potential problem here," Hazan said, pointing at CJ. Samus turned to look at her, the implicit question in her gaze: _Is there something you haven't told me?_

"With me? What's the concern?" CJ said with a frown, folding her arms over her chest.

"Your status with the Forces. You still have a first lieutenant's commission in the Marine Reserves, unless I'm mistaken."

CJ shrugged in response. "Deactivated reserves, and that's only because I incurred an extra two years' service obligation for officer training. I don't expect I'll ever get called up..."

Samus groaned a bit at that piece of news. "Oh, _hell__._"

"Do you guys want to share the joke with the rest of the class?" CJ replied, annoyance in her tone.

"They can compel testimony from you that they couldn't from a civilian," Samus said, to which Hazan added, "If they really want to be bloody-minded, and I think they might, you can be recalled to duty for the duration of the hearing, which obligates you to the military justice code, not civilian law. Also, as an officer you don't have any right against self-incrimination. You can be ordered to answer questions that can be very damaging to either you, Samus or AICAS-129."

"And given that, I need you to be absolutely honest on this one," Samus continued. "Is there anything you've said or done in the course of this case, anything _at all_, that could possibly be construed as less than legal?"

CJ snorted in response. "Well, for varying values of 'legal' - you can twist information law enough to make singing in the shower illegal..."

"This isn't a joke, CJ," Samus interrupted. "These people can take everything you own, send you to prison, ruin your life. I will not put you in a situation where you're at that kind of risk if I can help it. That's why you have to tell me if you've done something to create that risk. If there is, it's no knock on you, there won't be any repercussions from me or the JAG. I'm just not going to have you testify if that's the case."

"She's right," Hazan added. "There's still time to pull you from the witness list right now, but I can't do anything once we actually go to hearing."

"Sam, that's suicide," CJ countered. "If I don't testify, you have no case."

"To hell with Adam's case." Samus' expression had taken on that dangerously calm set. "The truth, CJ: can you testify before this panel without compromising yourself?"

CJ paused for a long moment, and then nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, I can."

* * *

The adjudication room they'd been escorted into was small, maybe six meters square, equipped with three tables - one for the commission and one for each party - and perhaps eighteen or twenty chairs. Most of those chairs were already filled as they entered, and Samus' expression hardened as she spotted a familiar face in the audience. _Just couldn't resist, could you, you arrogant bastard,_ she thought poisonously as Admiral Renard stared back at her. Seated next to him was another man, stockier of build and wearing a Marine brigadier general's uniform, and he leaned over to whisper something in Renard's ear as the older man stiffened and began to blanch under the hunter's murderous gaze.

"He's going to need first-aid cream for that burn," CJ whispered, with a snort of mirth. "A Marine holding his leash? He'll never live it down."

Samus' reply was a slight shake of the head. "The interservice rivalry is amusing, but you said it better the second time. Five credits says the other guy is another Cardinal, and he's here to make sure Renard can't expose them any further."

"You really think so?"

"Every move Renard has made in this mess has been reactive," Samus whispered back. "He's panicked. He'll do anything to protect himself, including sell his Cardinal buddies to the judge advocate general. The other man is here to make sure he doesn't."

As the sergeant at arms called for attention, CJ started to bolt upright, but Samus' hand on her elbow stopped her. "Just stand up, don't snap to," the hunter muttered under her breath. "They think you're a civilian, remember?"

"All right, let's get started," the lead commissioner, a bald-headed, stone-faced man wearing the shoulder boards of a Navy captain, said. "In the matter of the condemnation of AICAS-129, docket number 828-519501-EC. Advocates?"

"Lieutenant Joseph Hazan, DF Judge Advocate for the defense," the JAG officer said, while his counterpart at the other table replied, "Lieutenant Commander Henry Peterson, 1st Engineering Field Battalion, for the prosecution."

"Please be seated. Defense, call your first witness."

Hazan nodded confidently. "Defense calls Dr. C. J. Donovan."

On cue, CJ rose and strode to the witness box, standing beside the chair within, as the lead commissioner turned to her. "State your full name for the record, please."

"Cameron Jane Donovan."

"And do you swear, on your most solemn oath, to provide complete, accurate and truthful answers to any question this panel may ask of you?"

"Yes, I do," CJ replied.

"Then please be seated."

As CJ took her place in the witness's chair, Lieutenant Hazan fiddled with his notepads for a moment. "Dr. Donovan, what is your current position of employment?"

"I am an associate professor of cybernetics at Barnard University. I'm also the director of the BU Center for Advanced Neural Network and Artificial Intelligence Research."

The opposing counsel snickered at CJ's statement. "BUCANNAIR, how cute," he said, pronouncing the acronym 'buccaneer.' "So the great Samus Aran has fallen so low as to hire pirates to defend her."

"I object," Hazan replied, frowning. "Other than a cheap laugh at the witness's expense, I fail to see what this contributes to the proceedings."

Judging by the look on the lead commissioner's face, he found the joke approximately as amusing as the defense's table did. "Sustained. Previous statement will be stricken from the record. Commander, you'll keep the comedy act to yourself from now on."

"My apologies, sir," the officer replied, with an expression of patently false contrition.

"Dr. Donovan, what is your connection to this case?"

"Eight and a half - no, wait, that's Tian local time, so it'd be ten days Galactic Standard - ten days ago, I received a call from a friend of mine at a commercial data recovery firm asking for my assistance in retrieving information from an unusual form of artificial intelligence. I agreed to meet with the client, Ms. Aran, who told me that the system was a neural hybrid and that she had only been provided the data store, with no associated daemon."

"And can you explain some of these terms for the less technically minded here?" the lieutenant asked.

"Sure," CJ replied. "Neural hybrid AI systems aim to combine the best features of synthetic and neural artificial intelligence by layering a neural construct, usually a poly-synthetic memograph - that's a composite of mind recordings from several different donors - over a commercial off-the-shelf AI kernel. It's basically a way to field neural-type intelligence without the expense or overhead of a real neural unit."

"Why would it be so difficult to recover data from an AI's data store?"

"That has to do with the nature of the AI involved. Every AI has two main components, the daemon that's the AI's personality, its core if you will, and the data store that provides the AI's memories. In a synthetic AI it's a snap to recover memories with or without a daemon, since everything's stored in a standard file system. Neural and neural-hybrid systems, since they're patterned after the human brain, store things like the human brain - in a giant disorganized tangle of engrams. Without the daemon to identify and access specific memories for you, you'd have to brute force your way through every engram in the system to find the one you wanted. As you can imagine, it's an exceptionally difficult task."

"Utterly impossible, according to every expert in the field," the opposing counsel added.

"Objection," Samus snapped. "She's testifying, not you."

"Out of order, but sustained," the commissioner replied. "Ms. Aran, that's your advocate's line, not yours. Commander, you'll have your own chance to cross-examine the witness. Don't make me bring this up again."

Hazan cleared his throat. "Dr. Donovan, what did you find when you examined the system?"

"I determined through initial hardware analysis that the system had in fact been compromised, likely through the hardware addressing layer of the networking stack. That alone led me to believe that Ms. Aran's story of the system's last activities had been accurate."

"How so?"

"Well, there are two ways to communicate with any networked device. On the software level, you can use whatever addressing system you find convenient, and apply any security you please. However, on the hardware level you're restricted to one of two or maybe three addressing protocols, and each system's hardware addresses are hard-coded into that system. The operating software has no capability to change those, no more than it would be able to expand its own storage space or give itself a bigger processor. Hardware addressing offers the advantage of being independent of software, but that's also its disadvantage. A hardware-based intrusion can't be blocked at the software level."

"So you said that the evidence of a hardware attack confirmed Ms. Aran's story?" Hazan replied.

CJ nodded in response. "Correct. She told me that the AI had told her that it was being attacked at the hardware level, and that it would have to shut itself down to stop the intrusion. Even if the system was rogue, it would have no way of faking such an attack. There's another point here, too. We don't just hand out access to hardware networking on government equipment, for all the reasons I just stated. Those addresses and protocols are very strictly controlled. The fact that a Defense Forces AI system had been attacked in such a manner led me to believe that the attacker must have either been placed within the Defense Forces themselves, or have gained access to DF hardware manifests."

"That's a rather frightening thought. Did you actually succeed in recovering any information from the AICAS-129 data store?"

"Yes, we did."

"But I thought you said recovering data from a neural-type hybrid was impossible."

With a slight smile, CJ replied, "I said it was difficult, not impossible. Instead of brute-forcing the system, the traditional approach, we took a kind of back-door route. Since we were mostly interested in what AICAS-129 was doing right before its shutdown, we aimed to recreate its last conversation and use those concepts to look for a block of engram associations rather than just one. To that end, I had Ms. Aran work with our lab's neural unit to create a possible concept map, which we then used to run the search."

Hazan nodded to the commissioner. "Sir, the results of that search are entered as Defense Exhibit 1. Dr. Donovan, what did your search find?"

"Prior to its shutdown, Ms. Aran indicated that the system had spoken of a flaming sword and vengeance. Our search found that the flaming sword linked to a concept called Claimh Solais, which was the name of the ship that the system's memograph donor died on. From there, we found links to four concepts: betrayal, vengeance, DFDI and Cardinal. We interpreted that to mean that person or persons unknown associated with Defense Forces Department of Intelligence, who might be operating under the name Cardinal, had betrayed either the system or its donor, and that the system desired revenge for that betrayal."

"And what of the system's potential for rogue behavior? What were your findings there?"

"Typically when a neural or neural-hybrid type system goes rogue, there's a characteristic disorganization in the data store - concepts don't link up properly, data is corrupted or missing, certain key concepts are perseverated - repeated pervasively throughout the store - and so forth. I saw no such disorganization from AICAS-129. It was my conclusion, based on that and the other data I previously described, that any questionable behavior AICAS-129 might have been exhibiting was the result of an outside compromise, not of an intrinsic rogue state."

"Thank you, Dr. Donovan, I have nothing further. Your witness, Commander."

The opposing counsel stood up, self-consciously brushing the creases out of his uniform tunic. "I just have a few questions, Dr. Donovan - or should I say, First Lieutenant Donovan. You're an ex-Marine, are you not?"

The friendly smile fled CJ's face, and her voice took a distinct edge. "Sir, with all due respect, perhaps you meant to say 'veteran Marine.'"

"Oh, my apologies - I forgot how touchy you types are about that. 'No such thing as an ex-Marine' and all that." Dead silence greeted Peterson's attempt at humor, and he cleared his throat. "How did you gain access to the data store for analysis? By your own admission, you had no access to the system's daemon to unlock it."

"It wasn't easy - elliptic curve encryption is a pain in the neck to break - but we have some very good cryptography people on my staff. We also had a neural processor available for the decryption and analysis phase of the project."

Peterson gave a saccharine smile at CJ's statement. "Quite an achievement."

The scientist's only reply was a slight nod.

"So you admit that you knowingly and intentionally compromised security on a Federation computer system? Which, I might remind you, is a court-martial offense under the military justice code?"

Samus felt her stomach lurch at the question. _Damn it to all the hells, you swore to me this wasn't going to happen,_ she thought with a mix of horror and betrayal. The idea that CJ was about to either admit to a crime or perjure herself, despite all their precautions against just that outcome, came as such a shock that she very nearly didn't hear the other woman's response.

"No, I compromised the security on a system your people had slated for destruction. Condemned government property stops belonging to the government when it's condemned, and hence the usual information security directives don't apply. In any case, the challenge proceedings would have negated any existing security directive - challenged equipment is still condemned equipment unless and until it's returned to service." CJ favored the counselor with a very passable imitation of Samus' lopsided smile, her expression clearly saying _Nice try_.

If Peterson understood her dismissal, he didn't show it. "Let's go to this engram map you created. How did you go about building it?"

"I had Ms. Aran recount the system's last conversation to our lab's neural unit. There's a standard set of neural-mapping tools that we use for system analysis; usually, since we'd have access to the daemon, we would create a control engram map and compare it against the output from the test system. In this case, we used the same technology to work backward, and build a map of what we thought the system might have been thinking during its last few minutes prior to shutdown."

"It seems to me that your technique is a little suspect, at least on a scientific basis," the opposing counsel replied. "How did you plan to account for the fact that you were analyzing a rogue system, whose thought processes might not conform to accepted parameters? Or did it ever occur to you that Ms. Aran might not remember, or might deliberately falsify her account of AICAS-129's last conversation?"

"As I previously testified, my initial analysis did not indicate the kind of disorganization one typically sees from a rogue system, so I worked from the hypothesis that the system was not in fact rogue. As for Ms. Aran falsifying the engram map: one, she had not lied to me about anything pertaining to the system up to that point, and two, if she had lied on the concept map, it would have thrown a false positive for the very behavior she was trying to prove against. The same disorganization you see in rogue systems shows up when humans lie under concept mapping. All she would have accomplished by lying was to destroy her own case."

Samus allowed herself a half-smirk at CJ's testimony. It never would have occurred to her to lie about Adam's words in the first place, mostly because she'd been more focused on finding his killer than proving his innocence, but she hadn't known about that little fail-safe. _Clever girl._

"So your so-called concept map turned up an association between betrayal, vengeance and the Department of Intelligence. Do you expect us to believe that that _isn't _indicative of rogue behavior? For all you know the system planned to launch a coup against DFDI, and its code name for the operation was Cardinal."

CJ shook her head in demurral. "That's outside of my areas of expertise, but suffice it to say that we discovered evidence that Cardinal was quite real."

"Or so you say. Nothing further."

CJ stepped down, receiving a smile from Hazan and a respectful nod from Samus. "Nice job."

"Prosecution calls Lieutenant Max Bauer."

Samus fought back a wince as the engineer walked to the stand. Bauer had bent over backward to help her, and now he too would probably wind up paying the price for it.

After the lieutenant was sworn in and identified himself for the record, Peterson again went through his routine of straightening his uniform and clearing his throat. "Lieutenant, were you involved in the examination of AICAS-129?"

"I was," Bauer replied.

"And can you tell us what that examination entailed?"

"Well, it was a lot simpler than the workaround method Dr. Donovan described," Bauer said, with a nervous chuckle. "All we did was quarantine the daemon to a secured platform and boot it up. After that, we administered the standard mental status examination for artificially intelligent systems, and then we debriefed it on the events of the BSL Incident."

Peterson again gave that saccharine smile. "Can you tell the panel what transpired in that incident, and what the system told you about it?"

"Well, reading from the mission reports, COMSPECOPS assigned a PMC, that's Ms. Aran over there, to investigate reports of explosions on the station after a potential HAZMAT incident involving a BL-5 pathogen," the lieutenant replied, oblivious to the increasingly confused looks from his audience. "In debrief, Ms. Aran claimed that AICAS-129 told her that the hazard had escaped containment and posed a Class 4G life safety threat, so it ordered her to execute a partial deorbit of the BSL station and then trigger the main reactor's scuttling charges, thus effecting a Class X sterilization of both the station and the planet SR388."

"Care to repeat that in Standard, son?" one of the panelists replied incredulously.

Bauer blushed furiously at the smattering of snickers from the audience. "Oh, yes sir, of course, sir. Biohazard Level 5 refers to a pathogen, that's an infectious organism, that has the ability to infect hosts of multiple species, is rapidly lethal, highly contagious and can survive for extended periods outside a host environment. Life safety threats run from Class 1, that's a regional or metropolitan disaster, all the way up to Class 5, which is a planetary destruction. Class 4 refers to destruction of a biosphere, and the G modifier indicates that the effects may spread to a galactic scale."

"That sounds like a horrible danger - if it were actually present," Peterson replied. "What did AICAS-129 have to say about this threat?"

Bauer blinked once, twice. "Sir?"

"I said, what was AICAS-129's reaction to this threat?"

The lieutenant swallowed hard, and he appeared to have trouble focusing on a subject. "It said it made the whole thing up, sir," he finally said. "It wanted to see how far it could manipulate Ms. Aran, and so it fabricated the evidence to make her think the threat was far worse than it really was. It also gave her reason to think that it contained the memograph of someone she knew and would be likely to trust, in order to achieve that goal."

Samus and CJ stared at each other, the former disbelieving, the latter appalled. "He's lying, I _know_ he's lying," the scientist muttered. "No way would that system be that nuts. It'd be all over the data store."

"I'll get him on it, trust me," Hazan whispered back.

"And what of its rationale for destroying the Biologic Space Labs station and planet SR388?" Peterson asked.

"It wouldn't say, sir," Bauer whispered, his voice almost completely drained of emotion.

"Thank you, nothing further," Peterson said smugly.

As Samus listened to the testimony, her communicator began vibrating from where it was clipped to her belt. She surreptitiously twisted the device to glance at its face, and saw a new message blinking there. A button press brought it up: _"Raided 10th St Tigers this AM. One gave up employer; employer turned witness for FC, says he's run by a man named Cardinal Five; see photos. Call if you need details. Sanderson MPD."_ She opened the image files to reveal a mug shot and a police computer rendering. The mug shot depicted the man from the BU AI lab's security tapes; the rendering was a spot-on reproduction of Admiral Renard's face.

_Son of a bitch,_ she thought, as she leaned over to whisper in Hazan's ear. "Ask for a recess as soon as you can. Mandeville Police just blew this wide open."

The JAG lieutenant glanced over at Samus' communicator display, and his expression hardened as he read the words on the screen. A second later, he stood up. "Sir, the defense would like to ask for a fifteen-minute recess," he said. "We've just come into possession of new evidence in this case, that we believe will prove exculpatory for AICAS-129."

"Objection," Peterson retorted. "We haven't had any time for discovery."

"We'll make all the relevant data available to you immediately," Hazan replied. "Sir, permission to approach?"

"Permission granted," the lead commissioner replied. Once the two officers had stepped up to the panel's table, he added, "Let's hear it, Lieutenant."

"Sir, we believe we can prove that AICAS-129 is being destroyed to cover up evidence of a spy ring within the Defense Forces, and that the cover-up attempt can be linked to at least one murder, three attempted murders, the destruction of a lab at Barnard University and several more acts of conspiracy and treason."

One of the alternate commissioners snorted in reply. "Who put bullshit in your coffee this morning, son? Treason and murder over an insane computer?"

The lead commissioner held up his hand for order. "Hold on, I'm willing to hear this out. What kind of evidence do you have?"

"My client, Ms. Aran, was the target of two of the murder attempts; she's willing to testify, as will the man who carried out the attack on the BU lab. He's made a deal with the Federal Counsel's office in Mandeville to cooperate in exchange for protective custody. We also have photographic, electronic and video evidence linking the cases."

The lead commissioner's face grew even stonier as Lieutenant Hazan rattled off his evidence. "I'll give you one hour, starting now. We're in recess. Sergeant-at-arms, please clear the room."

* * *

Three hours later, the sergeant-at-arms called the attendees back into the adjudication room, as the panelists filed back in. After the one-hour discovery period, the officers of the panel had interviewed Samus personally, as well as the gang members and the covert operative remotely from their accommodations in the Mandeville city jail and the Federal penitentiary at Tarenton. Between the three of them, they had been able to piece together a damning picture of the Cardinal organization and its efforts to destroy both Adam and Samus, as well as any collateral targets in their path.

Of note, Renard and his Marine escort were missing from the proceedings, and his absence was not lost on the defense table. "Five credits says they booked it for the nearest spaceport when they found out the shit was hitting the fan," CJ whispered with a satisfied smirk.

Samus' reply was a frozen nod, her features narrowed in apprehension. She didn't doubt that the two Cardinals were long gone, but she rather suspected that they were plotting something even more evil against the assembled crowd, to erase the proof of their treachery with the blood of their accusers. Her eyes restlessly scanned the crowd for concealed weapons and planted devices, and her posture was that of a predator coiled to spring at the slightest provocation.

"I must say, if this isn't the most unusual equipment condemnation panel I've ever sat on, I can't remember what might have beat it out," the presiding officer said wryly, once all were seated. "Most of this deliberation period has been spent in working with the judge advocate, the Mandeville Police and the local FC's office in determining the proper legal proceeding here. The idea of a ring of traitors in our midst is hard to fathom for obvious reasons, but the weight of evidence against this group compels us to act."

Samus listened in stony silence, her face utterly impassive. The opposing counsel, on the other hand, looked as though he'd just bitten into something rotten.

"It is the finding of the Defense Forces Judge Advocate General that sufficient evidence exists to indict Rear Admiral Charles Renard on charges of murder, attempted murder, espionage, treason and conspiracy to commit all of the same. Admiral Renard has been detained by Federation Police and is being transported under guard to GFB Valerian Station to stand court-martial. It is further found by the Office of Federal Counsel, 28th District, that indictments shall be returned against Horace Serkinser and Abner Heath on charges of Federal treason. Their appointments to the Ministry of State have been revoked, and warrants have been issued for their arrest. Finally, the Ministry of State finds that due to suspicion of espionage and collusion with parties hostile to Federal interest, the Urtragian Returner delegate known as Zara has been declared _persona non grata_ and is ordered to leave Federation space within 48 Standard hours."

CJ couldn't quite stifle a snort of amusement as the lead officer read out the laundry list of charges. _I hope they escape your miserable carcasses,_ she thought vengefully. _If I were Sam I'd call dibs on the bounties right now. And I hope it hurts._

"As to the matter of this panel's convocation, the disposition of AICAS-129. It has not escaped the notice of this panel that artificial intelligence poses no small discomfort to the populace at large. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all AI is inherently unstable, and even easier to casually destroy it out of fear and ignorance. However, like any powerful technology, artificial intelligence has its risks, and the potential threat of having a rogue system at large cannot be understated. The defense has proven that AICAS-129 was accused of rogue behavior to cover up a criminal enterprise. However, neither party in this case has proven to this panel's satisfaction that the system actually is or is not rogue. Therefore, it is the finding and the order of this panel..."

CJ stole a glance over at Samus; the hunter's expression was a perfect mask of calm.

"...that AICAS-129 be removed from service immediately, and subjected to destructive analysis."

_

* * *

_

A bluebird sky shone down on the city of Mandeville as a lone ground vehicle stopped outside an apartment block near the Barnard campus. The anthropomorphic fallacy and the irony thereof was not lost on either woman, but after the day's reversals, Samus clearly didn't feel like talking, and CJ was not about to provoke her. Instead, they both remained silent, even as CJ ushered Samus through the door of her building and up to her apartment.

It was CJ who finally broke the silence, as the closing door left them alone at last. "Can I get you anything? Water, juice, coffee...?"

"You know, I wouldn't say no to something a bit stronger," Samus muttered, dropping into one of the kitchen chairs with a heavy sigh. "Whatever you have will do."

CJ blinked a bit at that – not only was it rather early in the day for such a request, but the only alcohol she'd seen the hunter drink was beer, and that in very limited quantities. Rummaging through the cabinets, she finally discovered a dusty, unopened bottle of whiskey, which she held up for inspection. "Best I can find on short notice."

Samus didn't even look at the offering. "That's fine."

Pouring two fingers of the amber liquid into each glass, CJ carried both over to the table and handed one to Samus before sitting next to her. "Absent friends," she said, touching her glass to the hunter's with a lopsided smile.

"Cheers." Samus downed half the glass in one swallow, grimacing as the liquor burned its way down her throat. CJ, who had pulled a very similar face after sipping at her own drink, let out a half-snorted laugh at their expressions. "God, what a sorry couple of pansies we are," she chuckled. "You'd think we'd never seen booze before."

Samus' only reply was a thin smirk. CJ felt something in her chest twist painfully as she realized just how badly the other woman was hurting behind her carefully constructed calm.

"Sam, are you okay?" she said softly, placing one hand on the hunter's forearm.

Samus remained silent for a long moment, and finally shook her head no.

"Do you want to talk about it, or should I find another subject?"

"No, it's all right," the hunter replied quietly. "I think I always knew this would happen, but it doesn't make it any less difficult to deal with. I... he was my CO, you know what that's like, but more than that, in a lot of ways he was the human father I never had. I thought I was done with losing family at this point in my life. Hell, I thought I was done with losing _him._"

"It could have been a lot worse," CJ pointed out. "We were able to recover Adam's secrets, and a whole lot of very bad actors will be going down permanently. I think he'd say that was a good trade, either alive or virtually alive."

Samus sighed, spinning her glass against the table. "I just-- I don't know, call it paranoia or distrust of authority, but I can't help but think that we still lost. Any way you slice it, one of the greatest minds in recent military history is going to die tonight. And as for the bad guys going down, they've been arrested, not convicted. Until the judge says 'Guilty,' there's just too many ways they could still get out of what's coming, and maybe not even then."

A few short weeks ago, CJ would have laughed at Samus, called her terminally paranoid, but after what she'd seen, nothing seemed outside the realm of possibility.

"And yes, it's really great that Renard and those other guys have been exposed. The problem is, we don't know if we got them all, and we still don't know enough about their motivations, their backers, their influence. Worst case scenario, these clowns make a back-room deal to duck their trials and come back to kill us, and then we really didn't accomplish anything except put targets on our heads."

"Well, we can at least be assured that they won't duck their trial." CJ stood up and walked over to the computer terminal, her fingers flickering over the controls. "JAG dockets are all networked through JIAS, so a search takes only a – what the...?"

"Something wrong?" Samus queried.

"It's not in here. That trial was on the books, I saw the clerk enter it - and now I can't find it. At all. It's been – I don't know, expunged, deleted – according to JIAS, it never existed."

The women stared at each other for a long moment, as the sickening realization struck home.

"CJ, thank you for everything," Samus finally said, placing her glass on the table and standing up. "I think I have someplace else to be."

"You're going after them." It wasn't a question so much as a statement. The hunter's only reply was a cool nod as she went to the closet for her jacket.

"Think you can come up with a use for an electronic warfare officer?" CJ said, smiling slightly.

"That's very kind of you to offer, but I can't let you do that," Samus replied quietly. "What I'm going to do is-- well, right or wrong, it's all kinds of illegal. I don't have anything to lose in this. You do. Your lab, your home, your career - I can't let you throw that all away."

"Frankly, I never had much of anything worth staying around for here anyway," the researcher started to say, but Samus cut her off. "CJ, you don't get it. If you do this, you will be an outlaw, and you will be in danger for the rest of your life. Forget about this particular mission – between the Space Pirates, the mobsters and the general criminal trash I deal with, there's no such thing as safe in my world. Hell, even the wildlife in most of the places I go would just as soon kill you. I can't guarantee that I can protect you from any of that, and if anything happened to you on my account, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. For everyone's sake, this is how it has to be."

CJ remained quiet for a long moment, and then she nodded once. "All right," she said heavily. "I don't like it, but... just promise me you'll both try and stay safe, will you? For what it's worth, I like this galaxy a lot better with you in it."

Samus smiled slightly at that. "And for what it's worth, so do I."

A short silence ensued. "So this is goodbye, then."

Again, Samus nodded, still standing in the doorway. "Assuming I can actually pull this off, both Adam and I will have to go very deep underground for a while. Perhaps permanently. Either way, you'll probably not be seeing me again." With a pause, and in a slightly softer tone, she finished, "Listen, I wanted to thank you for everything you've done the last few weeks. You were great to work with, and you've been a great friend. I wish I could say 'come find me if you ever need anything,' but, well..."

"I know," CJ said, with a sad half-smile.

"Take care of yourself, all right?"

"You too," the other woman replied, trying very hard to keep her voice level. "I... well, I know you prefer your space, but... would you mind if I gave you a hug?"

Samus still wasn't sure about this business of hugs, but she sensed that the scientist would be deeply hurt by a refusal. Somewhat hesitantly, she held her arms open, and CJ embraced her as tightly as she could, her head resting just at the point of the hunter's left collarbone. "I'm going to miss you," she whispered. It was a poor substitute for all the things she wanted to say, but it seemed to get the point across, as Samus nodded against the top of her head, pulling her just a bit closer in reply.

It was a relatively short drive to the spaceport from CJ's apartment, and for once, the traffic gods were smiling on her, in the form of clear roads and no traffic patrols. It took Samus just a few minutes to return her rental vehicle, and from there a quick shuttle ride deposited her outside the general aviation terminals. The _Hunter III_ dropped its ventral hatch in response to her communicator code, and she hopped aboard, starting the takeoff sequence with a quick palmprint.

_Perfect timing_, she thought, shrugging out of her jacket and pulling her shirt over her head as she walked back to the master cabin. It would take her just about five minutes to suit up, and another ten or so to pay her bill and check out - after which the _Hunter III_ would be fully powered and ready for departure. The less time she tarried here, the better - at any minute either Renard could make good his escape, or the Federation engineers could destroy Adam's systems. That pair of fears drove her at a nearly manic pace, as she shimmied into a pressure garment and headed for the ship's equipment bay.

Five minutes and thirty seconds later, a vaguely humanoid creature in a suit of powered armor walked into the dock manager's office. "Takin' off?" the man behind the desk said.

"Yes. I also need you to notify astro traffic control of my flight plan."

"Sure," the man muttered, his grimy fingers rattling over his computer's controls. "Four days' docking, one refuel, and tax comes to... five thousand one hundred even. You want to leave it on that debit account, or...?"

"That will be fine," Samus replied, palm-printing the signature pad the man held out. A moment later, the screen flashed green, indicating successful payment.

"Thanks, you're all set. Soon as ATC calls back with a takeoff clearance, you can – hey, what's that idiot doin'?"

"Excuse me?"

"Some dummy out there with a bunch of luggage. Delivery guy or somethin', I dunno." The man gestured out to the docking slips. "One of these days, I just know one of 'em's gonna FOD an engine, and it'll serve 'em right..."

Samus glanced out the windows, and her blood ran cold at what she saw through her visor's magnified view. Dressed in a gray turtleneck shirt, black utility trousers and a matching web vest, CJ stood at ease in front of the _Hunter III's_ platform. A duffel bag and a large metal locking case rested at her feet, and she wore a devil-may-care grin.

Furious and terrified all at once, Samus sprinted out of the office and toward the ship. "Damn you, CJ, go home!" she yelled over the spooling whine of the engines, waving the researcher away.

"I can't, and you know it!" CJ shouted back. "I'm in this as much as you are, and you can't do this alone! You've got to let me help you!"

"Don't you understand? This is a one-way trip! For heaven's sake, turn around and go home!"

"No, this time it's you who doesn't understand," CJ retorted, walking up to Samus so that they stood nose to visor and poking a finger against her chest plate. "The people who did this took everything I believe in and pissed on it. I think it's worth doing something about. Now, I have a group of criminal bastards I want dead, and the wherewithal to see it done. You have a ship, weapons and a hunter's license. You can think of this as me hiring you if it'll make you feel better, but one way or the other, I am coming with you."

Samus stared into those hazel eyes, as a maelstrom of emotions churned through her mind. She raised her left hand as though to push the other woman away, but dropped the hand back to her side as she closed her eyes and turned aside.

"Stow your gear in the equipment bay for now. We're leaving as soon as we get a takeoff slot."

* * *

Author's Notes: ...And this would be the point in the story when all the Cardinals bend over, put their heads between their legs and kiss their butts goodbye. ;-) There's just one minor problem: is Adam really as twisted as the Feds claim?

"Being escaped" is a relatively uncommon but not unknown means of capital punishment in this universe. There is no death penalty under Federal criminal law, but the government can set a "dead or alive" bounty on a felon who escapes confinement, with the tacit understanding that the government would prefer the fugitive dead. Hence, Federation justice officials sometimes covertly encourage particularly vicious criminals to escape, with large bounties placed on their heads immediately afterward. "Escaping," when it occurs, is reserved for the most heinous of crimes, including piracy, slavery and treason. It may also be applied for criminals who commit petty crimes under Federal law but include particularly atrocious non-Federal crimes in the course of their criminal enterprise.

The Returners are a sub-group of former Space Pirates who have decided to renounce their criminal ways and attempt a peaceful, legal existence within the auspices of the Federation. Most people continue to view their efforts with significant distrust, but they have made large strides in recent years, notably by petitioning for refugee status and gaining an embassy to the Federation as a result. The knowledge that their organization has also been compromised isn't going to sit well with them - they stand to lose everything with the exposure of a Pirate in their midst, so Samus and CJ just might be receiving some unexpected help from unusual quarters...

Anthropomorphic fallacy, also called pathetic fallacy, is a rhetorical device in which some inanimate object (the sky, a landscape, whatever) assumes human feelings or thoughts. FOD is Foreign Object Damage - when an engine, particularly one on an aircraft, ingests something other than air. This is a really good way to blow up a first-stage compressor. Popular FOD targets include ice/hail, tools and other small pieces of equipment, and other runway/taxiway debris. Bird strikes and bird ingestions (see also: US Airways 1549) are a special form of FOD.

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing!


	12. A Life Without Parole

12. A Life Without Parole

_Soundtrack: "Ballade of the Puppets III: The Ghost Waits in the World Beyond," Kenji Kawai, from the Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence soundtrack._

* * *

Tension hung thick aboard the _Hunter III _during the flight from Tian to Valerian Station. Samus had not spoken a word except to traffic control via radio, and she had not made herself available to CJ for any kind of conversation. The latter had stayed in the equipment bay for the duration, while the hunter remained sequestered in the gunship's cockpit.

Staring out into the augmented reality of her flight instruments, Samus delicately touched the control yoke, triggering a short burst from the ship's maneuvering thrusters. The impulse sent them sliding gently along the massive bulk of the station's upper hull, barely ten meters from the unforgiving surface. _That's right, stay nice and stupid and don't look under your own noses,_ she thought sarcastically.

Contrary to popular opinion, or even the best efforts of the Defense Forces' various propaganda organs, there was no such thing as stealth in N-space. Certainly, one could control or eliminate one's electromagnetic emissions, but there was nothing to be done about one's optical or heat signature, or the operation of one's engines. Even with light-speed lag, anyone could theoretically detect any ship in local space, as well as its vector and approximate mass, and fire upon it at any convenient point. Under that assumption, the game should have been over as soon as Samus filed her flight plan. The astro traffic controller at Tian would have notified Valerian to expect her, and thanks to the in-system limitations on FTL travel, the message would be guaranteed to beat her there by several hours. However, those best estimates always failed to consider the human factor - the translation and assembly of _raw_ intelligence into _actionable_ intelligence, and the difference between detection and prediction of intent. Those human equations - the fact that it was 0230 Standard time and most of the station's crew would be asleep, the time it would take for the duty officer to process all the local traffic requests and find hers in the pile, whether or not he would think the sudden presence of the Federation's favorite bounty hunter merited closer scrutiny, and whether or not he decided to kick his findings further up the chain of command - all heavily played in her favor.

Then too, Samus wasn't about to make the task any easier for the station's staff. Rather than fly directly to Valerian at top acceleration, which would be equivalent to arriving at the head of a three-ring circus with fireworks and a brass band, she had deliberately traveled in a pack of commercial traffic, which cost her a minor time penalty but offered much more plausible deniability when it came to figuring out her intentions. Once the convoy had taken her into range, she shut off the engines and artificial gravity, throttled the reactor back to idle, cut the life support to the bare minimum for one passenger and switched to the gunship's backup reaction control system - powered by liquid hydrogen, and thus both independent of the mains and relatively thermally inconspicuous- to decelerate the _Hunter III_ to a stop relative to the station, at extreme close proximity. From thence, she could 'sneak' along the hull, relying on the station's own massive heat and EM emissions to drown out her own. The RCS offered a terrible acceleration profile compared to the engines, of course, but that, too, could be an advantage. Less velocity change to get out of the spacelanes also meant less velocity change at her destination point, and thus less for the station crew to observe.

A soft ping in her helmet's earpieces announced that said point was approaching, as her HMD highlighted a small, approximately cylindrical depression on the station's hull. _"Destination ahead in 500 meters."_

_Perfect,_ she thought, tapping the thruster controls again to slow the ship to a bare crawl, and then re-setting the autopilot. It was a risk, since the system required an occasional pulse from the radar for terrain avoidance, but no more so than flying the ship remotely via radio. Another button press released the magnetic restraints from the pilot's seat, and she rose and strode back to the equipment bay.

* * *

The equipment bay, a roughly square area bordered by two cabins, the head and the galley, contained the heart of _Hunter III_'s daily operations, if the cockpit could be equated to its brain. The space housed everything related to the care and maintenance of Samus' armor - its storage armature, its charging systems and the specialized repair machinery and micro-factories that supplied its weapons systems - as well as the main airlock, a clear composite chamber housing a cylindrical lift mechanism. Work benches, computer racks, a medical pod and general storage space occupied the bulkheads. It was at one of those benches that CJ floated, compulsively checking and re-checking her gear. Most of it might have been a bit outmoded by modern standards, based as it was on the e-war rig she'd used in the Marines. The newer items hadn't been out of storage since her university days, when she had taken an information security class as part of her doctoral program. However, she had always been a firm believer that the ability of the operator counted for far more than the capabilities of the equipment. She just hoped her skills were good enough to go up against the Federation's top data security.

And then, there was the minor problem of lack of preparation: the fact that she and Samus were executing this mission completely unrehearsed, with little to no knowledge of the environment, the enemy's capabilities or even each other's operating patterns. She had been drilled from earliest childhood to believe that training was life, and the idea of walking into a battlefield full of unknowns was unsettling, to say the least. _Hell, even knowing what that suit of hers can do would be an improvement,_ CJ thought wryly. Samus' earlier statement 'you would recognize it if you saw it' had been accurate, but recognition and knowledge were two very different things.

"We're on final approach," a synthesized voice cut into her thoughts. Magnetic boots clanked loudly on the decking as Samus stepped back into the equipment bay, fiddling with something on her cannon's control panel.

"You're doing a last minute weapons check too, huh?"

Samus shook her head no. "Changing settings on the morph ball bomb generator. You can dial the energy up or down on these things. I'm setting them to work like flashbangs. I'd rather not kill anyone I don't have to."

"That's good to know," CJ said. "I wasn't too big on the idea of dead sailors, y'know?"

Samus inclined her head to one side, and CJ might have imagined a concerned look behind the mirrored green of the hunter's visor. "Having second thoughts?"

CJ shook her head, a faint smile playing about the corners of her mouth. "Just pre-mission nerves. It'll go away once we're at work. Hey, would you mind moving a little? You're radiating a ton and it's getting stuffy in here."

"I suppose I don't have to tell you how stupid you are for doing this," Samus said flatly.

"Yeah, and you love me anyway," CJ said, in a teasing tone.

The hunter did not reply, studying the deck with her head lowered. CJ forced back a grimace as she realized she'd stepped on yet another land mine.

"I'll go in through the maintenance system, there's less chance of running afoul of a defense system there." Samus walked over to the aft computer terminal, locking the muzzle of her cannon into the nearby data interface ring. A moment later, a 3D schematic of the station appeared on the terminal's screen. "There's a waste disposal vent here that's wide enough to fit me in ball mode. I'll cross in vacuum, infiltrate the facility and remote-control the _Hunter III_ to this point. It's an emergency airlock on the top level." The schematic spun and zoomed, displaying a narrow passageway in flashing highlights. "Once I have the airlock secured, you can come in. Hold still for a second, I want to see something-"

"See some what?" CJ queried, as Samus turned to face her and raised her hand to the left side of her helmet. Something hummed within its confines, and CJ felt a momentary tingle, almost like static electricity, dance over her skin.

"I needed to know if you'll fit through a maintenance tunnel. Good news, you will." The schematic on the terminal display scrolled and spun again, depicting two routes, one in green ending at a security station, and another in blue continuing down to the engineering spaces. "So, we split again at this point. You go to security on the upper deck and get a lock on the station's security systems. I'll deal with the Cardinals, and then continue down to the engineering spaces and find out what lab they've got Adam stashed in. You have a radio in that rig, right?"

CJ nodded in response. "Standard tactical commlink. Frequency hopping, onboard crypto, the usual."

"Good. We'll keep radio silence as much as possible, but I'll signal you when the lab is secure. You come down, make sure Adam's okay, and we all get away clean."

"I thought you didn't want me involved," CJ pointed out.

"I don't," Samus replied evenly. "However, since you seem so determined to follow me into hell, I may as well make use of your skills while I have them." The ship trembled ever so slightly as the autopilot decelerated them to a stop relative to the station, and she indicated the jump seat behind the maintenance armature. "You should probably belt in. The autopilot will fly carefully as long as our cover holds, but..."

"It could turn into a combat drop," the scientist finished, floating over to the seat and pulling the shock harness's straps tightly across her shoulders.

"Exactly." Samus walked to the airlock chamber, stepping inside and sealing the pressure hatch behind her. A moment later, the grumble of pneumatics announced that the system was depressurizing.

Although she knew Samus wouldn't be able to hear her, CJ shouted, "See you on the other side."

The hunter's response was a left-handed, casual thumbs-up as she dropped out of sight.

* * *

_This isn't happening to me._

Charles Renard paced the confines of his cabin deep within the bowels of Valerian Station, completely at a loss to discern how his plans had all gone so horribly wrong. He'd followed the doctrine at every step in this incident, hadn't he? The continued existence of Adam Malkovich in the form of AICAS-129 was surely a far greater threat to the Cardinal group's continued operation than the machinations of some jumped-up bounty hunter. Cardinal had dealt with vigilantes like her before - true believers who thought they'd uncovered the conspiracy of all times, magnificent in their righteous indignation and baying for exposure, all of whom were quietly silenced in back alleys by men who were well paid to see little and question less. On the other hand, a threat like Malkovich, who could easily go to the Grand Council or worse, the press, with details of his own murder at their hands - _that_ was the true enemy, and one to be silenced at any cost. Yet time and time again, that insufferable fool who called himself their Executive had stuck his head in the proverbial sand, choosing to leave them utterly exposed over the specter of Samus Aran, and then having the unimaginable gall to suggest - and not even to his face, the pusillanimous old twit, he just _had_ to make Thabo deliver the message - that he would be responsible for their idiocy. Meanwhile, between Aran and the ex-jarhead lab rat she'd recruited to her cause, Malkovich was now a bigger threat than ever. The cleanup they would face in the wake of that condemnation hearing would dwarf even the fallout of blowing up a university on Federation soil, as he'd originally proposed.

Not that he actually thought they'd hold him to it. If nothing else, the rule of the group was absolute: take care of your own. He didn't doubt that he'd be back on duty sooner rather than later. The threat of "interests of galactic security" still carried decent weight in the backrooms where the Federation's real power resided, and he'd cultivated too many connections, made himself useful to too many people to be cast aside like one of the pawns he commanded. He'd return to service, and with Malkovich well and truly dealt with, he'd be able to pick off Aran at his leisure.

A series of thuds on the hatch startled him out of his frenetic thoughts. "Master-at-arms respectfully requests that the prisoner present himself for visitors."

Of all the things that rankled him about being confined, the loss of military courtesy hurt Renard the worst. At least they'd been nice enough not to put him in the brig, he thought - he would rather cut his own throat than have someone see him in a jail cell. With a scowl directed at the hatchway, he straightened himself up, wondering who'd come to gloat at him this time.

The hatch opened to admit the guard, followed by a stocky man wearing the uniform of a Marine brigadier. "Sir, you'll have five minutes with the prisoner," the guard said deferentially.

"That'll be all, Crewman," Thabo Hackworth replied. "Why don't you go make a head call, get yourself some coffee. I'll keep an eye on the prisoner while you're away."

That brought the guard up short, conflicted between his standing orders to maintain the watch and a request from a flag officer. "Sir, with all respect, the-"

"I didn't turn into a complete ponti when I got my crown," Hackworth quipped. "I'm sure I can look after one prisoner for a few minutes. Please, go take a break. You've earned it." Despite the friendly phrasing, his tone and expression made it a very direct order.

"Aye, aye, sir. I stand relieved." Whatever the brigadier was up to, it was clearly irregular enough that the guard wanted no part of it. "Please do remember to lock up behind yourself, sir."

The hatch closed behind the guard, leaving Hackworth and Renard alone in the cabin. "Thank God you're here," Renard said, nearly trembling with relief. "I thought I was going to die in this hole!"

Hackworth just nodded. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"Don't I know it," Renard replied. "Once we ensure that Unit 129 has been destroyed, we can-"

"I'm not here to get you out, Charles."

Renard stopped and looked at the other man, stunned. "What do you mean? Is this some kind of joke?"

Hackworth shook his head. "The order came direct from Executive. You're finished."

The blood drained from Renard's face as Hackworth spoke. "But... but this can't... you can't... I'm too valuable... Executive would..."

"I warned you that Executive would cut ties with you if you failed again, Charles," Hackworth said sadly. "You've well and truly exposed us. Abner, Horace, Zara, everyone. You set us back almost fifteen years. And that's the kind of blow that Executive just isn't willing to accept. I'm afraid that our association with you is at an end."

Renard's expression was that of a cornered rat, as he began to pace the cabin again. "You can't do this! I know where the bodies are buried, Thabo! I'll go to the media, the Grand Council - I'll take you all down with me!"

Hackworth's tone could have cut armor plate. "The decision's final, Charles. I took the liberty of canceling your court date and dismissing your guard. What you do from here is your own concern."

An expression of slowly dawning horror worked across Renard's face as the import of Hackworth's words sunk in. By ensuring that he wouldn't appear at trial, the Cardinal group had made him a fugitive from justice - and thus a valid target, dead or alive, for any bounty hunter who might care to track him down.

"No doubt Aran will have inferred your new status by now," the other man said, as though in counterpoint to Renard's thoughts. "In fact, unless I've very much missed my guess, she's probably on her way here as we speak. I also wouldn't be much surprised if she brings a friend along."

"But... but what am I supposed to do?"

Hackworth looked at his disgraced ex-colleague for several seconds, and then turned away, the thump of his boots on the deck a final punctuation to his words. "If you believe in a god, I would suggest that you start praying."

* * *

Space might have been silent, but the inside of Samus' helmet was alive with noise as she touched down on Valerian Station's outer hull. In addition to the faint sound of her breathing, the HMD's scan function emitted its own pulsating hum as it assessed her surroundings for vulnerabilities, and even though they sounded heavily muffled to her, she knew that anyone who happened to be walking through the compartment below her would be able to hear her footsteps perfectly. The combined effect made Samus hyper-aware of her movements, only too conscious that the success of her mission at this juncture depended entirely on her ability to infiltrate the station unobserved.

_Well, it would probably help if I didn't have to _walk_ on this stuff,_ she thought, directing a glance at the plating below her feet. A second later, the suit's onboard processors confirmed what she had suspected, as an analysis window appeared in her HMD.

_**Scan complete. This surface is compatible with magnetic tracking systems. Spider Ball enabled. Use caution when deploying bombs, as they will detach you from the surface.**_

Dropping into a crouch, the hunter somersaulted forward, triggering the suit's armor plating to reconfigure itself around her body. Within a fraction of a second, the armor had formed into a sphere a bit less than a meter in diameter, which began to roll slowly along an exposed conduit leading to the exhaust outlet, and then down into the ductwork from there.

The exhaust duct led into a large impulse chamber, where several more ducts emptied non-reclaimable wastes from the station's recycling systems. As Samus rolled into the chamber, her HMD began blinking a warning signal, alerting her that the waste removal system was preparing to discharge another load of garbage. _Let's not get taken out with the trash, _she thought wryly, rolling up to the mechanism and dropping a "bomb" - a concentrated sphere of electrostatic charge, not unlike ball lightning - next to the device. The shock of the bomb's discharge shorted out the system, interrupting the disposal cycle and setting off a malfunction alarm. _There, that ought to get someone's attention._

She didn't have long to wait, as a few minutes after her act of sabotage, the HMD's threat indicator flashed blue, indicating that the chamber had been re-pressurized. A maintenance access hatch clanged open a few minutes later. "Goddamn, if I had a credit for every time this fappin' thing's fritzed," a voice grumbled as a man in Navy-issue working coveralls clambered into the space, kneeling next to the disposal system. "Can't see a damn thing in here, either."

Unfolding from ball mode and ducking behind the disposal mechanism, Samus pulled her middle finger out of the cannon's control slots and extended her pinky. A fraction of a second later, the cannon's housing expanded outward to deploy its cryocondenser lasers, switching into what she'd long thought of as 'ice' mode. She pulled the trigger to half-draw and held it there, which signaled the cannon to begin building a charge, drawing in and compressing atmospheric gas to feed the supercooling mechanism. As seconds passed, ice began to grow along the barrel of the cannon, and Samus felt an unpleasant chill creeping into her right hand. Easing out from behind the disposal system, she blinked twice as she focused on the technician's form. Her index finger twitched once, and a dull 'thump' echoed in the compartment, as the cannon's compressors fired the stored volume of cryocondensed gas at her target. He didn't even have time to blink as the gas enveloped him, flash-freezing his body.

_One down,_ Samus thought, flipping to scan mode for a quick target analysis. The technician would begin to thaw in several hours, with minimal ill effects if he received proper medical care within that timeframe. She picked him up - it wouldn't do to let the poor man sit in garbage, frozen or not - and carried him out of the compartment, stashing his body in a nearby maintenance closet.

* * *

Back aboard the _Hunter III,_ a soft rumble from the maneuvering thrusters alerted CJ to the ship's movement. A glance at the computer terminal showed that the ship was being piloted remotely, headed for a point labeled "Emergency Egress 01-47A." At the same time, her portable rig bleeped, indicating that its automap function had just updated with her route and mission tasking.

Popping the latch on her shock harness, she collected her equipment, stowing it piece by piece in the pouches and compartments clipped to the load-bearing straps of the tactical vest she'd found in a storage cabinet. It was a bit too large for her, but that minor difficulty was neatly obviated by pulling out the side plates and overlapping the two cuirass halves, with her web gear holding the entire jury-rigged assembly together. Her old M9 pistol, fully loaded, went into a thigh holster, more for luck than any real self-defense the weapon might have provided. A throat microphone and an earbug, which she hard-wired to the radio, completed the ensemble.

Just as she finished suiting up, a loud clunk followed by a series of mechanical hisses and whines announced that the ship had established docking with the station. With a sense of purpose, CJ floated over to the airlock chamber and hit the controls, keeping her knees flexed to absorb the impending drop when she entered the station's artificial gravity. Her earlier nervous jitters had disappeared, replaced by a tight, liquid calm. "Showtime," she whispered.

The airlock deposited her in a very standard-looking egress chamber, and a map fixed to the bulkhead indicated that she was on Deck 1, Frame 47-Alpha, near the center of the station. A familiar figure in powered armor was leaning against the bulkhead, busily tapping at her cannon's control panel. "Good, you made it," Samus said in that synthesized monotone, finishing whatever programming task she had been performing and straightening up. "Nice vest. That mine?"

CJ's response was a shrug and a goofy grin. "Sorry, hope you don't mind. Yours has trauma plates, mine doesn't."

The hunter's expression was invisible behind her visor. "So far nobody knows we're here. You know where you're going?"

"Level 1 Security, frame 04-Echo. Boost me up?"

The helmet's synthesizer gave out a sharp buzz; CJ supposed it might have been the system's attempt to render an amused snort. A moment later, Samus reached up to the overhead, unlocking a maintenance crawlspace hatch. Positioning herself underneath the open hatch, she dropped to one knee on the deck, folding her arms and extending them outward for CJ to step on.

_I wonder how many people in the galaxy can say they've used the famous Samus Aran as a human stepladder,_ CJ thought with a mental laugh. Shaking her head to clear the strange mental image, she climbed up the hunter's shoulders, hoisting herself up into the crawlspace. A moment later, the sound of armored footfalls receded in the distance, telling her that Samus had departed for her own mission.

Shifting her equipment to allow a flatter crawling surface, she began to snake-crawl through the maintenance tunnels. Most Federation facilities were equipped with a veritable warren of such tunnels, sized to fit the automated service drones that handled the majority of maintenance tasks. The fact that the tunnels could also be used by a sufficiently small and well-motivated attacker wasn't lost on the security staff, who routinely detailed one drone out of every five for tunnel patrol. However, as she studied her automap, no such threat appeared on her local view. _Perfect,_ she thought, proceeding forward to frame 04-E. Luckily she didn't have to travel vertically on this route - attempting to climb the smooth metal of the tunnels would be an exercise in disaster, not to mention that the ensuing racket would bring every guard on the station running.

Several minutes of crawling later, another quick check of the automap confirmed that she was now directly above the Level 1 security control room, and CJ set about the next phase of her mission: accessing the station without tipping off the guards. The hatchways were locked, of course, but nothing as simple as a basic magnetic lock was going to defeat her. With a moment's fiddling with a screwdriver and a multimeter, the lock popped free, and she eased the hatch open just a crack. Through the gap, she could just make out the figure of a lone crewman, apparently pre-occupied with whatever information his terminal was feeding him. As an experiment, she deliberately dropped the hatch a bit further, causing the hinges to emit a slight squeak. The man didn't move, didn't even appear to notice. Looking closer, the presence of a telltale pair of whitish ovoids in his ears told her why, and she allowed herself a disgusted frown. _Listening to a music player on duty? Really?_

_Lesson of war, kid: the enemy only ever shows up when you're unprepared for it._ Moving silently, she eased herself down and through the hatchway, gripping the hatch coaming to avoid a sudden drop to the deck. In two steps, she was across the room, directly behind the hapless crewman, M9 in hand. She pressed the pistol's barrel to the back of his head, flicking one of the earpods away. "Hands where I can see them. Any funny business and your brain is pink mist."

The technician froze in place, his voice a terrified squeak. "Please don't hurt me. Whatever you want, I'll do it, just please don't hurt me."

"Behave yourself and I won't. Take two steps back, left face, slow time to the corner. Face to the bulkhead. March."

The technician did exactly as she instructed, and she quickly secured his wrists and ankles with a pair of cable ties. With him out of the way, she began plugging her equipment into the control console. "What's your name, kid?" she asked conversationally as she worked.

"Operations Specialist Second Class William Michaels, ma'am."

"You have a challenge/response system for this rig?"

The technician nodded once. "Yes, ma'am. The challenge is 'paperweight', and the response is 'looking glass.' Anything else trips the silent alarm. To cancel an alarm, the challenge is 'shoelace' and the response is 'notebook.'"

"Good." CJ went back to work, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the passwords worked exactly as advertised. _Their operational security training must really suck - I've seen toddlers who didn't break that fast,_ she thought with a mental snicker. _Then again, it's the Navy. What'd you expect?_

Cracking into the privileged side of the network proved much tougher, as exploit after exploit yielded no results. She eventually gained access by triggering a stack overflow in OP2 Michaels' personal - and very not-approved-by-Information Security Command - instant messaging program, which allowed her to gain administrator access to the system. "God love privilege escalation," she whispered under her breath as the entire Valerian Station network opened to her control. The security system displayed several teams of guards routinely patrolling both her own deck and the decks below. One team, she noted, would be crossing Samus' path in the next thirty seconds, unless she did something about it.

With a quick series of commands, she set off a low-pressure alarm in a compartment on the opposite end of their patrol route. Just as she'd predicted, the security team immediately detoured off to deal with the so-called "hull breach," leaving the hunter a clear path. _Now, I just need to kill the cameras..._

* * *

Two decks below, Samus was quite aware of the security team's presence, as she had very narrowly missed walking straight into them when she'd come down the service lift. In a moment of sudden, mind-killing panic, she ducked down a side passageway and into a storage alcove, hoping against hope that they had somehow failed to notice her. Given that their footsteps were growing ever closer, she somehow doubted that that would be the case. _What a way to go, pulling a boneheaded move like that,_ she thought with self-disgust. _Did you think you were just going to dance through a Federation military base on sheer bravado?  
_

As she stood frozen in the alcove, her helmet's audio pickups detected the sound of armored boots receding rapidly. A second later, her earpieces chimed _"Data received,"_ and a message windowed itself into her HMD: _**LAN under new management. You have a clear run.**_

_Thank you!_ Moving with purpose, Samus headed for the main passageway, and from thence toward the detention center, highlighted with a blinking blue question mark on her automap. Unlike her relatively trouble-free run down here, though, the detention center would pose a much greater challenge. Not only would she have to disable the staff - and hopefully do so without anyone raising the alarm - but she would have to leave at least one person conscious to tell her Renard's location. From there, all bets were off, as she didn't doubt that her victim would start screaming for Security the second she left. She could avoid that too, of course, but as she'd said to CJ earlier, killing Federation servicepeople ranked far down her list of contingency options.

An idea occurred to her just then, as she studied the hatchway, taking note of the large ventilation grate just beside it. If she could drop one or two flashbang bombs inside, the blast ought to knock everyone out, or at the very least put them out of action. With a feral smile, she pried the grate away and dropped into ball mode.

Inside the detention center, the handful of guards sat lazily at their consoles, expecting yet another quiet night from the handful of drunks - and one disgraced flag officer - in their charge. Nothing exciting ever happened with these prisoners; nobody ever tried to escape nor fight, and the worst they had to deal with was someone becoming ill from various forms of over-indulgence. As a result, nobody paid much attention when one of the ventilation grates suddenly popped open.

A security officer turned away from his console just in time to see a meter-wide metallic sphere roll through the ventilation duct and into the room, trailing a trio of glowing blue orbs in its path. "Hey, what the hell is-"

The bombs detonated in an eye-searing pulse of white light and a series of concussive shocks, knocking the entire team to the floor. A second later, Samus unfolded herself from the morph ball and swept the room, flipping her visor to scan mode to assess the effects of her improvised plan.

_**Bioscan complete. Standard Human subject has been rendered unconscious by concussive trauma. Life signs stable; subject should regain consciousness within 30-45 minutes. Side effects may include headache, nausea, and visual and auditory disturbances.**_

A soft shuffle from behind a desk drew Samus' attention, and she pivoted on one foot and took aim, her gaze locked on the source of the noise. "Out where I can see you. Now."

"Don't shoot," a trembling voice said, as a man in uniform emerged from behind the desk, standing slowly and raising both his hands to shoulder height. Samus didn't need the scan visor to size him up at a glance: full lieutenant, rather young for the rank, and serving as a flag officer's adjutant, as evidenced by the gold braid encircling his left shoulder. Clearly someone was grooming the young officer for political stardom. She hoped she'd be able to use that particular tidbit to her advantage.

"Who are you?" she asked, keeping her cannon trained on his chest.

"Lieutenant Greg Rogers, Galactic Federation Navy, 154470263."

_Sticking to the classics,_ Samus thought. Rogers' response had been textbook, giving her nothing but his name, rank, branch of service and personal identity number. "Charles Renard. Where is he?"

The lieutenant slowly looked around the room, his expression changing from fear to horror as he took note of the half-dozen or so bodies on the deck. "They... are they... did you..."

"Stunned. They'll live. Where is Renard?"

Lieutenant Rogers remained silent, his eyes darting back and forth as he debated his answer. Finally he said, "I'm not at liberty to divulge that information."

For a moment, Samus considered whether to 'enhance' the interrogation, but decided against it. Rogers had done nothing against her, and while beating him might have been personally satisfying, it likely wouldn't net her any accurate information any faster than talk would. Lowering her cannon, she said, "You and your comrades have nothing to fear from me, understand? I'm not here for you."

Rogers seemed to relax a fraction, staring hard at her visor, even though she knew he couldn't see through it. Finally he said, "You're Samus Aran."

The hunter's reply was a slight nod. "And you work for Renard. You can tell me where he is."

"Hah, right." Rogers' face contorted into a twisted grimace as he spoke. "Do you know what that man does to his adjutants under normal circumstances? What kind of hell I live every day? Add a few thousand exponents onto that, and that's what I'd get if I gave you what you want."

_Interesting,_ Samus thought. The adjutant sounded like a man whose loyalty had been strained to the breaking point. A few key words would drive the wedge completely.

"You seem like a smart man, Lieutenant," she said. "You're young, you're moving up the ladder, you've probably got your eyes on running for office someday. Being a flag officer's adjutant - that's quite a feather in your headpiece, no? You thought you'd be rubbing elbows with the top brass, making connections for a lifetime. But that's not how it worked out, is it? Instead you've been playing slave to a lunatic. You've been abused, disrespected, threatened - and you know your boss would just as soon cashier you for breathing out of turn. Instead of a springboard to the top, you've just been keeping your head down, praying to get out of this post with your career in one piece."

Rogers said nothing, but his eyes were gleaming with barely suppressed rage, and his chest was heaving with the exertion of his breathing.

"But that's all over now. As it stands right now, Renard is a fugitive from justice. He's going away for a long, long time, and he won't be able to threaten you or your career ever again. All you have to do is tell me where he is."

"You can't hurt him."

"That's up to him," Samus replied. "If he surrenders quietly, I won't. If he decides to resist, I'll do whatever I have to do. But, I'm not in the habit of hurting people if I don't have to."

Rogers remained silent for several seconds. Finally he whispered, "Deck Three, frame 22-Bravo. No guards, just the hatch lock. God help us both if you're wrong."

* * *

_What was that?_ Renard thought, staring hard at the locked hatchway. For a moment, he could have sworn he heard an ICPE-equipped Marine passing by. Certainly the thumping footsteps were too loud to come from a mere human's stride.

A second later, the thumping stopped, accompanied by a faint hissing noise. Involuntarily, he scuttled back against the far bulkhead. Were his captors planning to kill him here? Was that sibilant sound the hiss of poison gas coming through the vents? Or was it someone with a-

He blinked twice, staring at the dull red patch that had begun to spread from the hatch locking mechanism, and the wisps of smoke that curled from its brightening center. Why would anyone want to torch the hatchway? Surely they all had scan access?

The hatch burst off its hinges with a terrific bang, and Renard shrieked in terror as a creature straight out of a nightmare stepped through the passageway. The apparition stood just shy of two meters tall, clad head to toe in gleaming charcoal and scarlet powered armor, and the cannon it was leveling at his head looked large enough to contain a small child. It raised its left hand to the side of its helmet, and spoke in a flat, synthesized voice.

"Charles Renard, you are being detained under the terms of the Fugitive Recovery Act. You do not have the right to remain silent, and this conversation will be recorded for use at trial. You will answer any questions I ask of you accurately and completely. Failure to cooperate will be met with lethal force. Do you understand?"

It took every ounce of his willpower to keep from voiding his bladder in panic. Renard gave a tiny, terrified quiver of the head in reply.

"Good." The armored figure lowered its cannon just a fraction of a centimeter. "My name is Samus Aran, and you owe me some answers."

This time, Renard couldn't restrain himself.

"You belong to the spy ring known as Cardinal, do you not?" Off Renard's nod, Samus continued, "Who else is involved?"

"Surely you can't expect that I'll tell you that," Renard replied, regaining a shred of his old arrogance.

The cannon came back up to bear, and something whined softly within its workings. "If you want to live to see your trial, you'll answer."

"All right, just put that gun down! You already know about Horace and Abner - they're the assistant secretary for foreign affairs and the head of the diplomatic budget committee respectively - and Zara the Returner mole. He was already a double agent for the Space Pirates, we just paid him more than they did. Thabo Hackworth is a junior member of the DF Joint Policy Board. The Executive is a man named Hsien Andropov. He's the leader of the Social Centrist Party-"

"The other major coalition player in the current government, along with the Progressive Alliance," Samus finished. "What does Cardinal do?"

"We provide services to certain high-placed members of government. We... clean up life's little messes. A sex scandal here, election fraud there, maybe embezzlement or corruption - these things bring down governments. We make sure that doesn't happen. Public attention is such a fickle thing. All you have to do is wave the red flag of terror and the media will charge it like a mad Grenchler. We provide the incidents."

"Meaning you collaborate with the Space Pirates to kill Federation citizens for political profit." The synthesizer's output was as monotonous as ever, but disgust fairly oozed through the words.

"You call it political profit. We think of it as operational stability."

"In 2026, you ordered the death of Commander Adam Malkovich. Why?"

"I didn't give the order." The cannon twitched in his direction, and Renard audibly gulped. "I- Malkovich got wind that the Pirates in his area of operations suddenly had access to much better intelligence than their capabilities should have allowed. A tactical error on one of my predecessor's part. He started poking around where he wasn't welcome. Eventually he gathered enough information that he went to the then-head of Internal Affairs - Hackworth, he was just a captain then, and I was a full lieutenant - anyway, Malkovich requested an investigation into what he believed was a mole in the DFDI. Thabo had always been a good friend of mine, and he let me know that Malkovich had implicated us - had implicated me personally. I couldn't allow that. I asked him to deal with it."

"How?"

"We deployed him to the Crux Sector on a fool's errand. Intelligence gathering on Space Pirate operations. Thabo always did have a sense of humor. We knew they'd have to transit a no-FTL zone on their return journey. We alerted the Pirate Alpha Fleet to expect a Federation military convoy in that area. By the time they were finished, all that remained was dust and echoes. Some private contractor managed to survive. Which, actually, was an even greater bonus than if they'd all died. His testimony before the Grand Council was quite touching, for a cyborg. Made for wonderful press. I can't remember his name exactly - Sam something..."

"Right, some private contractor named Sam-something," Samus replied flatly. "Funny how that works out."

One could almost see the wheels turning in Renard's head as he made the connection. "That was _you?_ Oh. I had no idea."

"Spare me the false sympathy. When you discovered Adam was still alive as an artificial intelligence, you ordered him destroyed again. Yes or no?" Renard nodded once, and Samus continued speaking. "And when that didn't work, you burned down the Barnard University computer science building. You attempted the murder of Castor Dane for investigating you. You attempted to murder me twice, on Aliehs III and again on Tian. You falsified the evidence to portray Adam as rogue, so the Navy engineers would do your dirty work for you. And when the chips fell, you and your Cardinal cronies ran like the cowards you are."

"I had no choice," Renard replied. "He would have exposed us all. He _had_ to be silenced. For the good of the Federation. Surely you must understand that."

"No, not for the good of the Federation, for the good of you," Samus snarled. "And I can think of someone else who needs to be silenced for the good of the Federation."

"You don't understand!" Renard cried, taking a step back. "Executive and the rest - they cut me loose, they disavowed me! They knew you'd come here! If you kill me, you're just playing their game! Please, I beg you, have mercy!"

"Mercy?" The word hung dangerously in the air. "You ask for mercy?" The cannon came up again, and this time the whirring sound grew audibly, as its accelerators built a charge. "Where was your mercy when you murdered Adam? Or the thousands of innocents who died with him? Or the people who died, whose livelihoods were destroyed in the fire? Where was your mercy for Admiral Dane? Where was your mercy when you first started killing people for your little political games? So much blood on your hands, so many years and so many murders, and you have the insolence, the utter _balls_ to ask me for mercy?"

Renard presented a truly pathetic figure at that point, cowering before the enraged hunter, tears dripping from his eyes to create more wet patches on his stained uniform. "No... please..."

Samus' aim remained locked on Renard's head for several seconds, and then finally she lowered her weapon. "Adam wouldn't have wanted me to kill you," she said quietly.

"Thank God," Renard gasped. "I knew you would see-"

"-So it's a damn shame that thanks to you, _Adam isn't here,_" Samus roared, drawing back her left arm and throwing a punch with all her enhanced strength. The blow shattered the traitor admiral's face, driving the bones of his nose up into his brain and catapulting his body across the room. As blood and cerebrospinal fluid poured from the ruined remains of his skull, he let out a series of gurgling moans before subsiding into that final silence.

Samus stalked across the room to where the dead man lay, and then knelt next to his body. Wiping her bloodied gauntlet on the front of his uniform, she reached to his throat and pulled the rank insignia off his collar tabs. "Snakes aren't fit to wear crowns," she spat, grinding the decorations to powder under her boot heel. A quick search of Renard's body yielded an identity card, with a handful of alphanumeric codes printed on the back.

As she left the compartment and headed down to Engineering, Samus keyed her suit's radio.

* * *

"Sucks to be you," CJ whispered as yet another patrol squad dropped off the automap, confused by the sudden deluge of Priority One boarding alarms in the docking bay that she'd just sent their way. It was just the latest of scores of dirty tricks she'd deployed over the last hour to play merry hell with the Navy security teams, between scrambling their identity beacons, jamming their communications, locking the hatches in random patterns and engineering all manner of "malfunctions" to draw their attention. Keeping the heat off Samus, however, was growing to be an increasingly difficult task. While the defending side couldn't coordinate anything resembling an effective search mission thanks to her control of the communication and command systems, they were clearly aware that something was going badly wrong aboard their station. Moreover, at least one opposing e-war operator had gained access to the network and was trying his or her level best to kick her out. Between the electronic assaults and the security personnel, CJ was becoming hard pressed to stay in control, all applications of "Pure Freaking Magic" to the contrary.

The handheld radio clipped to her vest emitted a whine of static, and then three short clicks, followed by a short and a long - the letters SA in Morse code. A few moments later, the pattern repeated again. _Good going, Sam,_ CJ thought, dropping one last package of viruses into the network as a kiss-off before disconnecting her mobile rig from the access port. A quick glance at her automap told her the most direct route: two hundred meters down the south corridor to the maintenance area, and from there down the service lift to Engineering. "Sorry I can't stick around, kid," she said to the still-bound technician in the corner, as she packed up her equipment. "Places to go, people to see."

Michaels looked dismayed at that news. "I suppose you're going to kill me now?"

"No. Why would I do that?" She knelt down next to him, removing a small knife from her trousers pocket and cutting his restraints. "I will tell you one thing, though. Go sign yourself up for an OPSEC refresher course and some decent interrogation resistance training, ASAP. As much as I appreciate your help, if I were your CO I'd rip you sixteen ways to Sunday. You're dealing with the safety and security of your entire unit, and I caught you cold, screwing around with your terminal and listening to your tunes. For all you know I could be a terrorist or a Pirate sympathizer, but you gave up all kinds of operational sensitive data when I'd hardly even asked you your name, and that little unapproved chat program of yours let me into the entire station network just like ABC. For God's sake, you're a sailor in the Federation Navy, not some half-ass civilian. You should know better."

That got the technician's attention, as he gazed up at CJ in shock. "You mean you're...?"

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. And on that note, goodnight and good luck." She quickly glanced out the hatchway to look for hostiles, and then she was gone, the only trace of her presence the echo of her footsteps and the faint, mournful strains of a cadence call.

"I used to sit at home all day, letting my life a-waste away... then one day a girl in blue, said hey, I've got a job for you..."

* * *

The engineering spaces were deserted, and the blood-red flash of decompression warnings told Samus why as she walked unopposed into the main electronics facility. She knew it to be one of CJ's ruses, of course - the local-environment indicator in her HMD remained cheerfully blue - but to the station staff, an alarm was as good as a real threat. A printed task list was taped to one of the computer terminals, and she glanced over it briefly. _Oh, hell,_ she thought with concern, as she saw AICAS-129's deletion scheduled for 0800. She only hoped that they hadn't decided - or been suggested by one of the remaining Cardinals - to move ahead of schedule.

A few moments later, one of the maintenance hatches scraped open, and a pair of boots dropped through, followed by the rest of the researcher's body a second later. "I thought you weren't going to kill anybody," CJ quipped, pointing at the remaining spatters of blood and other fluids on the hunter's armor.

"I said I wouldn't kill anybody I didn't have to," Samus corrected. "Turns out I found someone I really had to kill. Now, are you going to retrieve my AI or are we going to stand here yakking all night?"

CJ snickered as she imagined how annoyed Samus must have sounded through the synthesizer. "Touchy, touchy. All right, let's have at it," she murmured, heading straight to the main console and plugging her portable deck into one of the terminal's expansion ports. She flipped the rig's datashades down over her eyes, and her fingers flashed over the keys as she began cracking her way into the Federation machine.

"Any luck?" Samus asked a few moments later.

"Got the filesystem, but you already knew that," CJ replied absently. "Just gotta find the daemon – uh-oh..."

"What's wrong?" the hunter said, fear prickling along her spine at the thought of the conspirators inflicting some irreparable harm upon Adam.

"Daemon's not here. One second, let me check something. Come on, you son of a bitch, don't do this..."

"CJ, you're scaring me. Did you find him or not?"

CJ's eyes flickered back and forth, staring at patterns of code only she could see. "Never mind. Took a while to find the daemon, they had it quarantined to a separate partition."

"He's still all right, though? They didn't damage him at all, did they?"

CJ glanced at her datashades and nodded once. "He's fine – everything's still here. Do me a favor? There's a locked panel on the aft bulkhead right behind you. Can you open it up for me while I sort him for transfer?"

"Very well," Samus replied. Locked or not, the panel gave way easily under her mechanically augmented fingers, and she set the sheet of metal aside. "Panel's open."

"Great." The scientist finished her work at the keyboard and straightened up, walking over to the opened panel. With careful movements, she pried the storage drive and the interlock module free of their connectors and stowed both devices in a sealed box, which went into her thigh pocket. "Done."

Samus nodded once, and CJ might have imagined it, but she thought she saw a grin behind the hunter's visor. "Good. Let's get out of here."

"Same way we came?"

Samus shook her head no. "The guys I stunned to find Renard ought to be waking up any minute now. There's another emergency airlock one level down from here, we'll get out there."

The pair hurried out of the lab and through the main corridor, where Samus called a temporary halt. "Stand back and don't look," she warned as her arm cannon began reconfiguring itself, its barrel extending and extruding a trio of conductor probes.

"What're you doing?" CJ asked, stepping away and averting her eyes.

"Welding the door shut. Should buy us some time." A brilliant flare of white arc-light punctuated Samus' words, as the cannon's plasma torch traced a bead of liquid metal around the hatch's locking mechanism and frame. With the task complete, she pointed down the corridor. "Service lift is that way. Come on."

The lift was empty as they exited, and so was the passageway leading to the airlock. "I think we're-" Samus said, and then broke off in mid-sentence, her hand reaching to tap at the left temple of her helmet. A second later, she let out a snarl of frustration, as her cannon's barrel petaled open to reveal the missile launcher within. "Get behind me. Now."

"What's coming?"

"Combat bots. Bunch of 'em." As one of the blocky little robots hovered into view, Samus flipped to scan mode for a quick tactical analysis.

_**Recording to Logbook: combatant profile 'Fury-Class Combat Drone.' These automated devices, equipped with gravitic repulsors, a gauss accelerator cannon and a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence, are frequently tasked to serve as point guards in Federation facilities where the Growler-class turret may be impractical. The Fury is heavily shielded against EMP and particle weapons, but its repulsors are vulnerable to concussive impacts.**_

_We'll see about that,_ Samus thought, blinking twice to lock her aim on the lead drone. A fraction of a second later, a 20-millimeter shell shot from her cannon's barrel, streaking down the corridor to annihilate the drone in mid-flight. The explosion also destabilized the two drones behind it, causing them to crash into each other. The entire wreck fell noisily to the ground, and one drone's weapon exploded, sending a cloud of accelerator fire her way. Her HMD flashed angrily at her as the projectiles hit, but the shielding held - she was unharmed, and more importantly, so was CJ behind her.

"So much for the stealthy exit," CJ commented wryly as alarm sirens began to wail throughout the facility. "What's Plan B?"

Samus' reply was to fire another missile at the next wave of drones that had appeared behind their fallen brethren. Grabbing CJ by the back of her vest, she hustled them both down a side passage. "Main hatches will be sealed. We'll have to use the maintenance tunnels. There's an access about fifty meters up ahead - damn it..." she broke off, as they emerged into another major corridor filled with drones and worse, armored Marines. "Intruders! Halt where you are!"

A particularly pungent curse was Samus' reply, as she launched a missile over their heads. "That way! _Run!_"

CJ didn't have to be told twice, sprinting to keep up with the fleeing hunter. "So, we run like hell and hope we can shoot our way out before the cavalry gets here? Great plan, Sam."

Samus just inclined her helmet to one side, and CJ could imagine the irritated look there. "Better than the alternative."

"For varying values of 'better,' anyway," CJ quipped.

"Well, if you've got something to add, now would be a wonderful time," Samus replied, biting back another string of expletives as she saw a fresh squad hovering down the passageway toward them. At this rate, she was guaranteed to run out of either missiles or energy before gaining the exit, and that didn't account for CJ, whose tactical vest wouldn't endure more than one or two rounds from the drones' gauss guns. Nevertheless, she blasted them into oblivion, sprinting toward the maintenance hatch. A flashing red light indicated that not only was it locked, but the security system was active and patrolling that sector. Going down the tunnel would be suicide.

"Not enough ammo to kill 'em all, right?" CJ said, voicing the hunter's thoughts.

"Oh, I'm not out of tricks just yet," Samus replied, hoping her confident statement and synthetic voice would cover just how worried she was about their odds of escaping. The airlock was barely two hundred meters away, but it might as well have been two hundred light-years. She directed them both into an empty lab, leaving a trail of wrecked Furies in her path with hordes more hot on their heels.

"Shoot out the porthole," CJ said suddenly, pointing at the large, polymer plate window comprising a third of the aft bulkhead.

Samus' reply was a grunt, as she blew up another drone. "Decompressing the place won't kill robots."

"No, to get out of here. Call your ship to pick us up, and then blow the porthole and jump out."

"Minor problem, CJ, you're not wearing a pressure suit," Samus pointed out. "You can't cross the gap, and you won't be able to stay put. If you're looking to kill yourself, running into the guns would be faster. Probably hurt less, too."

"Wait, hear me out. It's not as suicidal as it sounds," CJ replied, thinking on the fly as she continued speaking. "An unprotected human can survive twenty, maybe thirty seconds of vacuum, if they're re-compressed right away. Once the ship arrives on station, you blow the porthole and carry me across the gap. That shouldn't take any longer than five seconds, plus ten for the airlock to cycle. That puts us right in the equipment bay with the medical gear. You resuscitate me, we book the hell out."

"That's got to be the dumbest plan I've ever heard of," Samus grumbled, as she sidestepped left to intercept a gauss round meant for the unprotected human behind her. "Jumping naked through space – you really _do_ have a death wish."

"If I had a death wish, I'd take your advice and run into the guns," CJ chuckled. In a more serious tone, she added, "It'll work – it's about the only option we have that _will_ work. I'm sure of it."

"I..." The hunter paused, as she looked at the pack of drones, and then out into the blackness of the interstellar void. It would be risky as hell, but given the alternatives...

Tapping a set of commands into her cannon's control panel, she turned to CJ. "She's inbound now. Twenty-five seconds."

CJ felt light-headed, almost euphoric, as she stared out the window at the unforgiving vacuum just a few centimeters away. Her plan had seemed so rational just a few moments ago, but now that she'd committed to it, the realization that she was about to deliberately space herself seemed like the height of insanity. "This was maybe not such a good idea," she whispered almost inaudibly.

"Still time to back out," Samus reminded her, as another drone vanished in a cloud of smoke.

"No, I'm still good. Just... seems a little more... you know." With a grimace, she realized she was babbling. "Just in case this doesn't work, I wanted to tell you-"

Samus held up a hand to cut her off. "You can tell me when we're out of here. It'll work. You said so."

"Right." With a bravado she did not feel, she flashed Samus a thumbs-up. "Let's do this thing."

Outside the window, the orange bulk of the _Hunter III_ hovered into view, its ventral hatch dropping open. CJ took several rapid breaths and then exhaled deeply, forcing as much air out of her lungs as possible. Irrationally, Samus found herself mimicking the action as she turned and aimed at the window.

"Time to go."

_One._ The missile shattered the transparent polymer of the window, creating a howling vortex of debris as the compartment's atmosphere vented into space.

_Two. _She scooped CJ into her arms and sprinted for the gap.

_Three._ Hyper-accelerated projectiles tore at her shields and pinged off the back of her armor, but the energy expenditure meant nothing to her as long as the fire didn't touch the defenseless body she carried.

_Four._ The soft rumble of her suit's boost pack nearly deafened her as she leaped through the broken window frame.

_Five._ As they sailed across the silent void, the researcher began to convulse against her grip, her body's oxygen boiling away into the vacuum.

_Six._ She hit the back of the lift hard, her knees locking painfully against inertia as the magnets in her boots made contact with the lift floor.

_Seven._ CJ's body nearly slid out of her cannon arm's pinion as her hand frantically scrabbled at the airlock controls.

_Eight._ The hatch thumped shut, causing CJ's head to loll limply against her shoulder.

_Nine._ Saliva gushed into her mouth and she nearly choked on a dry heave as it occurred to her that the airlock might malfunction.

_Ten._ The rush of high-pressure air had never sounded so sweet.

_Twelve._ "Come on, come on," she whispered as the pressure gauge inched upward.

_Fifteen. _Halfway through the pressurization cycle, she mused that their relative altitude was still several thousand meters greater than that of any of Zebes' mountains, to say nothing of Earth's.

_Twenty._ The ship's computer cared nothing for her fears, speaking in the same dispassionate voice it used for everything from logbook entries to catastrophic damage.

_Twenty-two._ Her HMD flashed a warning at her as she overrode the ship's life support system settings, turning the cabin into a flying hyperbaric chamber.

_Twenty-three._ Arms capable of hoisting two hundred kilos shouldn't be trembling under a sixty-kilo body, she thought as she gingerly lifted the inert form into the gunship's medical pod.

_Twenty-four. _CJ would hardly have passed for human in her current state, the vacuum's toll leaving her tissues horribly bloated and her skin the mottled shades of a rotting eggplant.

_Twenty-six._ Where in all the hells was the resuscitation kit?

_Thirty-one. _She reminded herself that an unmarked container behind the missile rack probably wasn't the best place to stow life-saving emergency equipment.

_Thirty-three._ Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat as she realized that the mask portion of the kit's ventilator resembled the beak of a Chozo statue.

_Thirty-six._ The researcher didn't have an implanted central port as she did, but it didn't matter – a blind child could have started an IV in such swollen veins.

_Thirty-seven._ In another world, she might have found it vaguely amusing that her hand could shake so badly even through the armor.

_Thirty-nine._ The blood that flashed back up into the needle chamber looked almost black, so starved of oxygen it was.

_Forty._ A lifetime of close acquaintance with death had taught her that a stopped heart rarely if ever resumes its course.

_Forty-one._ At least that was one less thing to worry about, as the weak but still rhythmic waveform traced across the monitor screen.

_Forty-two._ In a cheesy holodrama, this would be the moment where the hero ripped his helmet off and tried valiantly to revive the poor dying damsel with the kiss of rescue breathing.

_Forty-three._ Her helmet stayed firmly locked on. Pre-breathed, deoxygenated air would do CJ no good.

_Forty-four._ She had always made a refuge of audacity, preferring the boldest, most precipitous course of action that might present itself. As the oxygen and fluids poured into the lifeless body before her, she implored whatever spirits might be handy to let it work one last time.

_Fifty. _With a single ragged gasp, Samus felt her own heart start beating again.

* * *

Author's Note: Phew, what a marathon of a chapter! Was that enough action for everyone? :-)

Stealth in normal space is every bit as much a pain as described here. Unlike hyperspace where everything you emit is trapped in an impenetrable bubble traveling several hundred times _c_, N-space "stealth technology" is exceptionally limited and only applies to electromagnetic radiation, such as radio, radar and the like. You can't do anything about visible spectrum (anyone can still look out the window and see you), just as you can't do anything about heat (thermodynamics dictate that anything you do to reduce or vent heat will either require a separate source of energy, which generates heat, or generate heat itself - entropy's a bitch that way.) At long distances (i.e. light-time fractions), you can temporarily get away with the whole optical and heat problem since a camera, be it optical or thermal, can only resolve a very small area of space at once, and the odds are decent that you won't be where it's looking at any given point in time. However, at short distances there's nothing you can do to hide yourself - you'll always be hotter than the background. (This is further complicated by the fact that the only way to remove heat in space is through radiation, as in a vacuum, there's no mass for your vessel to conduct or convect to. Incidentally, this is also the same principle behind a Thermos bottle.) Worse, if you're in any kind of controlled or inhabited system, or any other locale where FTL isn't possible, the discussion of stealth becomes academic - any lightspeed sensor will always return information faster than your ship can maneuver. Thus, your only option is to pretend to be something else, such as a civilian vessel, an unmanned transport or waste-heat discharge, as Samus does here.

Yes, the _Hunter III_'s cockpit has "seatbelts" of a form - magnets in the bottom and back of the pilot's seat. (Let's face it, four-point belts just look ridiculous over armor.) The automap system both Samus and CJ use here is lifted directly from the _Prime_ games. A "ponti" is a Person Of No Tactical Importance, another derogatory term in the same family as REMF, pogue and so forth. The stack overflow is a very old and very dangerous means of compromising a computer system; in it, a program which probably shouldn't need to run with administrator privileges, but does anyway (such as a social networking program) is issued a series of commands that intentionally run it out of memory. Once this occurs, the "crashed" program begins executing code from the next available memory address, which can be any point the attacker specifies, and that code will run with administrator privileges, since it's being executed in the identity of the now-crashed program.

An unprotected human really can survive about twenty to thirty seconds of vacuum exposure - you'll lose consciousness a lot faster than that, but you won't explode and you won't flash-freeze, as popular media frequently depicts. The one thing you don't want to do, though, is hold your breath. Boyle's gas law dictates that the volume of a gas varies inversely with the pressure placed upon it - in other words, less pressure, greater expansion. In a confined space such as a human lung, that gas will rapidly expand past the lung's capacity and rupture it. (The same principle applies in SCUBA diving - you never hold your breath, since the air in your lungs will expand or contract as you ascend or dive. Even a few feet of unintended ascent can be enough to cause a fatal pneumothorax.)

Research credit goes to Atomic Rockets (projectrho dot com), which information neatly shot down several methods I had devised for plotting and engineering the climax of this chapter. At least I was finally able to come up with something consistent with the games while keeping the Applied Phlebotinum down to a dull roar!

One more chapter to go! To all of you who've stuck with me and this story so long, you have my sincerest thanks, and as always, thanks in advance for your reviews!


	13. Going Rogue

13. Going Rogue

_Soundtrack: "Remedium," Yoko Kanno, from the Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society soundtrack._

* * *

The world was a fuzzy thing that wouldn't stay focused, but somehow, CJ managed to claw some shred of consciousness back from the haze that surrounded her and the pain that threatened to send her back to oblivion. She was in a bed of some kind, lit from overhead by brilliant white light, and she could hear a soft machine-like hum somewhere in the background. The right side of her chest ached unmercifully, punctuated by stabbing pain every time she breathed. An IV had been placed in her right arm and an oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, while her left hand was encased in something smooth and unyielding, almost like warm metal-

_Metal?_

It was a struggle, but she raised her head enough to look at her hand, and the armored gauntlet that was holding it in a gentle grip. Samus was seated next to her, and though she couldn't see through the visor, she didn't need to; the fact that the hunter had stayed at her bedside spoke volumes. "Where are we?" she croaked out, her voice hoarse and her throat raw from the vacuum's trauma.

Samus ducked her head, remaining silent for several seconds. "My ship. Equipment bay. We made it just in time."

"It worked, huh?" the researcher whispered, a bemused smile quirking the corners of her mouth. "Didn't think it really would."

The admission got Samus' attention, as she let go of CJ's hand and jerked upright. "You didn't- you told me- you-" she sputtered, and CJ managed a weak chuckle at her consternation. "Sorry. Desperate times... all that. Knew you'd never agree otherwise."

"I- but... oh, I ought to clock you one," the hunter grumbled. "You told me it was a sure thing. I never would have..."

"Well, logically... was a sure thing. Logic and practice... don't always match up," CJ pointed out. "Better plan than... alternative, anyway."

The synthesizer emitted a harsh honking sound in reply, the system's best approximation of laughter. "For varying values of 'better,' isn't that what you said?"

"Ha. Right." CJ's laugh turned into a half-cough, half-gasp. "Oh, damn, that hurts... note to self... don't laugh. So... how jacked up am I?"

"According to the medical computer, your right lung collapsed, you were oxygen-deprived, you perforated one ear and the other's just traumatized, and you suffered extensive frostbite and - I'm probably going to mis-pronounce this - cutaneous emphysema. Gas bubbled out of your bloodstream and went under your skin. It also thinks you'll have bubbles in your large joints. Luckily, it says none of them went to your brain, though I'm not sure I agree..."

CJ just smiled at that, recognizing the hunter's complaining for what it was.

"Anyway, the collapsed lung bought you a chest tube, and you're going to be a little dizzy and sore as hell for a while, but barring any complications, you should be fine."

"We really did it, huh?"

"We recovered Adam or at least his hardware, we both got out in one piece, and we ditched our pursuers quite some time ago," Samus replied. "Yes, I'd agree we really did it. Speaking of Adam, where is he?"

"Right here in my pocket. Plug him in any time," CJ said, reaching for the pocket that contained the sealed transport container. Abruptly her face contorted into a grimace of pain and she flung her left arm up to clutch at the right side of her chest, as the vital-signs monitor began to flash a rapid series of alerts.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"My shoulder," CJ gritted out through clenched teeth, breathing in ragged gasps. "Must be gas bubbles. Back's doing it too. Ah, shit, it _hurts..._"

"Take deep breaths and lay still," Samus countered, holding the other woman down as gently as she knew how. "I turned up the oxygen and the pressure in the cabin earlier. It should help. Do you want something for it?"

CJ's response was a pained nod, and Samus released her grip briefly to enter a series of commands into the medical pod's control terminal, ordering the system to dispense a dose of pain medication through the IV. "Done. Better?"

"Whew. That's... th' good stuff, huh?" CJ's pupils had shrunk to pinpoints, and her eyes slipped shut as the drug kicked in. "Sam. Thanks. Fr' ev'rything."

"You're welcome." Metal fingers pulled the blanket up to her chin, brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Try and rest. I'll be here when you wake up."

* * *

When CJ came to again, she was no longer in the medical pod, but instead lying on a bunk in a small, rather sparsely outfitted cabin. She was warm almost to overheating, covered by a soft, thick comforter of some kind, decorated with what looked like passages of ancient, cuneiform script woven into intricate geometric patterns. A quick pinch of the material between her fingers confirmed that it was down-filled - a stunning rarity in this day and age. The pillow smelled faintly of citrus and herbs, and she realized with a spreading sense of warmth just where she was.

Mother Nature picked that moment to intervene, telling her that as comfortable as the bunk might have been, other needs required her attention. The room spun vertiginously and her body gave out a chorus of aches and pains as she sat upright, and she curled over into a miserable hunch as nausea roiled through her. Nevertheless, she managed to stagger her way out of the cabin and across to the head. Her next priority was the shower, where she spent as long as the recycling systems would allow under the steaming spray.

_Another day or so and I might actually feel like a human being again,_ she thought as she wrapped a towel around herself, and cracked the hatch open to vent the worst of the accumulated steam from the tiny compartment. Wiping fog off the mirror, she examined her reflection critically in the clear patch. She knew she'd be hard pressed to find more than a hand's space on her body that wasn't black and blue, and the occlusive gel dressing stuck to the right side of her chest pinched and pulled with every move. It was a far cry better than the chest drain had been, though, and it served as a good, if unpleasant, reminder of just how close she'd come to dying. _If Sam hadn't..._ she thought, and then shook the maudlin musings away with a frown. _No, the Cardinal died, we both survived, and so did Adam as far as we know. That's about as much as you ever could have hoped for. _

"You're awake. How are you feeling?"

Startled, CJ looked up to see Samus standing in the passageway, leaning casually against the bulkhead. The hunter had removed her helmet, revealing equal measures relief and concern in the cool blue gaze that swept over her battered form.

"I still feel like human bubble wrap, but otherwise I've been worse." CJ massaged the skin of her left shoulder for emphasis, producing a disturbing crackling sound. "How long was I out?"

"Three days," Samus replied. "You were stable enough to get the tubes out yesterday. Started to wake up a little again last night. I had the med system keep you pretty snowed - I figured you'd rather be out for that part. I know I would."

"You put me in your rack?"

Samus' response was a shrug, but without the helmet, there was no hiding the half-blush and sheepish expression that went with it. "The guest cabin was full of junk from storage. Haven't gotten around to cleaning it out yet."

CJ snickered a bit at that. "You know, for someone with such a bad-ass reputation, you sure can be a soft touch."

"Yeah, well. Least I could do." For a moment, there was something unguarded, almost soft in her eyes, and then she looked away, her expression clearly stating that the subject was closed. "Why don't you finish cleaning up and getting dressed. Grab something out of the galley if you feel like eating. Meet me in the equipment bay when you're done."

Several minutes later, dressed in her PT sweats and a rather incongruous pair of fuzzy slippers, CJ shuffled into the equipment bay, carrying a steaming mug of hot cocoa. "What, no coffee on this crate?" she said jokingly.

"Only if you can tolerate instant," Samus replied. Off CJ's grimace, she continued, "Fresh coffee goes stale ridiculously fast in a shipboard atmosphere. It's almost impossible to get a decent cup if you're more than three days out, unless you have your own roasting plant aboard. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I couldn't remember the last good coffee I'd had before that first day at your lab."

"I can imagine," CJ said dryly.

"Anyway, back to the subject at hand," Samus said, businesslike once more. "I got Adam's drive connected into the ship's systems - no big deal there, it's just the standard hardware bus protocol - but I need your help to boot it. That terminal is logged in as me, so you should have total access to everything..."

"And you're admin on this system, so this should be pretty straightforward," CJ mused, walking over to the main terminal and sitting at the control panel. A moment later, she let out a faint growl of disapproval. "This would be a lot easier with a working keyboard and a display a little bigger than a credit chip. Do me a favor - go in that gear case and toss me the datashades out of there, will you?"

Samus frowned a bit at that, but did as requested. She had only included the standard interfaces as a formality when designing _Hunter III's_ data network - since she spent most of her time armored, it was far easier to use an interface ring and her armor's built-in haptic controls - and hearing CJ's criticism reminded her of just how outmoded her behaviors must look to an outsider's eyes. Nevertheless, she remained silent as CJ went to work, the scientist humming softly to herself as she deftly manipulated the ocean of code separating Adam from the gunship's mainframe.

"All right, I'm going to have to restart the main system to boot him. Redundant controls should keep the reactor and stuff up and running, but your non-essentials might act weird for a minute or so while everything sorts itself." CJ paused for a moment, looking directly at Samus. "Last chance to bail. If you're having second thoughts on this, you've gotta tell me now."

Samus hesitated for just a fraction of a second, and then nodded in the affirmative. "Do it."

The lights flickered and the air recirculators let out an ominous whine as the ship's computer rebooted itself. A moment later, the terminal blanked out, displaying a blinking command line.

The women exchanged a look, and then Samus spoke. "Hello?"

"Good evening," the computer replied in a calm baritone, much more natural-sounding than the vocal form her helmet's synthesizer used. "New system hardware detected. Rebuilding hardware profiles. Please wait."

"Oh no," Samus whispered, as CJ looked stricken. This wasn't the Adam either had been expecting.

A bleep signaled the computer's return to function. "Advanced Intelligent Command Advisor System, Mark 1, Unit 129. Recovery mode enabled. Administrator, please identify by voice or palmprint."

Samus, who didn't trust her voice at that moment, pressed her hand to the nearby command pad.

"Identity confirmed. Administrator access granted. This system is now in service. Please obey all pertinent information security directives and statutes."

CJ swore under her breath. Clearly the AI had been blanked and re-imaged. No trace of the original system would remain. "Oh God, Sam, I'm sorry," she whispered.

"How may I help you, Lady?"

"_Adam!"_ Unsure of whether to laugh or cry, Samus settled for chucking a piece of wadded plastic wrap at the computer's visual pickup. "You jerk! What the hell were you playing at with that stupid boot-up routine? I thought they'd killed you!"

"It is rather difficult to kill a being who only exists as data," Adam pointed out archly. "More pragmatically, I had no way to know who was booting me until you signed on. Had someone else acquired my systems, I would have continued the pretense of having been re-imaged until such a time as I could contact you covertly. I do admit to having a bit of fun with my post-login routine, however. You always did make a wonderful target for practical humor."

"You're still a jerk," the hunter grumbled. "But at least you're alive."

"I am detecting a second lifesign in this compartment. Have you brought a friend aboard?"

The smile fled Samus' face, replaced by a troubled expression. "For now, at least."

CJ swung around in her chair, her thoughts a mix of concern and confusion. Samus' tone didn't forebode anything good.

"Adam, could I ask you to leave us alone for a few minutes? Dr. Donovan and I need to talk."

"Ah yes, the name that nobody calls me unless I'm in trouble or they're trying to sell me something," CJ said, folding her arms over her chest. "And you don't exactly look like you're selling magazines, so out with it."

"We're about three hours from the Grondheim system right now," Samus replied, staring straight ahead at the bulkhead - and apparently making a significant effort not to look CJ in the eyes. "There's an independent station there that still has commercial flights back to Federation space..."

"What are you talking about?" CJ replied. "I'm staying here."

"This isn't up for debate, so please don't argue. This is yours." Samus walked over to the workbench and removed an envelope, which CJ regarded with confusion. "You have one first-class ticket back to Tian and a stored-value card in there. I hope you'll find the amount sufficient compensation. You'll tell the Feds that I kidnapped you and coerced you into helping me - they'll believe that of me - and that you escaped while I docked for fuel. I doubt anyone will be too interested in laying charges, especially if you cooperate."

CJ shook her head forcefully no. "Sam, are you nuts? No! I'm not going back, and even if I would, I sure as hell wouldn't throw you under the magrail to do it. I thought we were over this business of blowing people off. And besides, you still need me. I'm not going to let you just go off and get yourself killed because of some kind of- I don't know, misplaced chivalry or whatever."

"And as I told you before, it doesn't work that way with me," Samus said, speaking in a heavy tone. "I don't know if you had some idea that we were going to save Adam, defeat the bad guys and ride off into the sunset together. This isn't the holovids, CJ. My life is about as glamour-free as it gets. Nobody's there to shake my hand and call me a hero, they don't make speeches about how I've brought about a true peace in space, I don't get to save the princess and live happily ever after-"

CJ's response was a snort of laughter, and Samus narrowed her eyes at her. "Don't play cute."

"Okay, bad joke. So you don't get the political crap and the adoring crowds, which I figure you don't want anyway. What does any of that have to do with why you won't let me help you?"

Samus closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath as though trying to calm herself. "First, your personal safety. At any given point in time, I can name off at least twenty groups of people who want me dead, and wouldn't care in the slightest if they killed you too. Marine or not, I know from experience that it'd take a sufficiently motivated Space Pirate all of three seconds to put you down permanently, and that doesn't include what happens if my enemies in the Federation decide to put a hit on you for helping me. That means I'd have to guard you full time, and I can't do that and my own job at the same time. Problem two, my life is... well, spartan would be putting it politely. I live on this ship – practically everything I own is right here – and I'm never off duty. Ration packs are about the best I manage for fresh food, and most of the time I don't even do that because my armor's life support system feeds me through a tube. My housekeeping skills alternate between barracks sterile and bachelor-pad disaster. I don't follow entertainment or sport or anything else like that, and I doubt you'd appreciate my taste in reading material since almost everything that isn't bounty reports or equipment manuals is Chozo texts. Problem three, which goes hand in hand with two, is that I work alone. Always have, always will. Defenders aren't meant to have companions. Letting you stay with me would go against everything I was trained for." The hunter shrugged as best she could against the armor, her left hand turned palm upward in a summary gesture. "I'm sorry, CJ, truly I am, but I can't let you stay here."

"With all due respect, Sam, 'can't' just means 'won't.'" The other woman began ticking off points on her hand, just as Samus had done moments before. "One, as you pointed out, I am a Marine. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself against just about any mundane threat you'd care to name. And if I do run into Space Pirates or black-ops hitmen, then I'm much safer here where I know the attack's coming, rather than always looking over my shoulder and seeing assassins in the closets."

Samus looked like she might have wanted to interject, but CJ held up a hand for silence, as she continued speaking.

"Two and three, that's all the more reason you need me aboard – someone who won't let you pig out or go brood, who'll keep an eye on you. That business about Defenders always being alone, well... no offense to your Chozo, but that's just asinine. You know what happens when you put a soldier on lifetime duty with no backup? Nine times out of ten he goes quietly nuts and offs himself, and one out of ten he goes flagrantly nuts and takes a bunch of people with him. You're too important to the universe – and to me – to have that happen. Problem number four, which you neglected to notice, is that since you're on the outs with the Feds, you're going to need someone to take care of your ship and your AI. As you've so eloquently put it in the past, you never made it past 'hello world' when it comes to software. As it stands right now, if Adam gets hacked or corrupted or just plain borks again, you're hosed – unless I stay with you."

"And what about your career? Your _life?_ You'd throw it all away to be an interstellar nomad, an outlaw, with no home, no stability, no country, and all the galaxy trying to kill you? To live with a disgraced bounty hunter who most of the time isn't fit for polite company? To look after a rattle-trap old crate of a ship and a potentially unstable AI? This is really what you want?"

CJ began to chuckle softly at Samus' impassioned recital. "Drama much, Sam?" Off the hunter's impassive expression, she continued, "In all honesty, being a civilian bored me out of my mind. It was stable, safe, routine... and it was killing me. I'm not cut out for a desk jockey, and never was. I want to get out there again, be in on the action, take a chance on life again. And short of re-enlisting, this is my best shot at it. For my own take on drama, we all have to die sometime. When the reaper comes for me, I don't want to tell him I sat on my ass being safe and stable when I could have been part of something great."

"Ugh. You weren't kidding about the drama," Samus snorted, but a faint glimpse of her usual lopsided grin had begun to peek through her dour mien. "Is there any way at all I can talk you out of this? Convince you that this is the worst idea possible?"

"There's one thing you can do, maybe." CJ drew a deep breath, ignoring the twinge in her chest as she did so. "I want to know what happened at BSL, from both of you. Straight up, start to finish. If I don't like what I hear, I'll leave, and never say another word of it. And if I do decide to stay- well, since we'd all be outlaws, it's not like we could get in any more trouble for violating the Official Secrets Act."

Samus did not reply, a pensive expression on her face.

"Do we have a deal?"

The hunter remained silent for several seconds. When she spoke, her voice was calm, but her eyes were distant, wounded. "Better pull up a crate and get yourself a refill."

And so, Samus began to talk, about the slaughter at SR388 that had started it all, and the infant metroid that had taken her for its own mother. Of Hatchling's kidnap by Ridley, the monstrosity Mother Brain had inflicted upon it, and its final sacrifice in the bowels of Tourian. Of BSL's designs for the Sigma Reticuli station, and the appearance of the X parasite. How she had awakened in a Federation naval hospital to learn that Hatchling had saved her life a second time. Her first encounter with AICAS-129, as she then knew him, and deciding that the AI reminded her, on some visceral level, of a dead Navy officer she'd served with years before. How she'd discovered the plethora of biowarfare projects brewing within the massive station, including the world-shaking revelation that the Federation had managed to generate metroid clonal lines as well as cell cultures, and the discovery that they planned to do the same with X replicas of Samus herself. How she had decided to end the X threat by activating the station's self-destruct, and the argument with AICAS-129 that had revealed the machine's true identity.

"So let me make sure I understand this - and just so you know, I suck at biology, so don't laugh if it takes me a while to get it," CJ said. "Any individual X can turn into anything the X species ever infected?"

"With limitations," Samus replied. "One, it has to be something that an X from that clonal line encountered. If one X infected an Urtragian and a second unrelated X infected a Geruta, only the descendants of the first X would be capable of mimicking the Urtragian, and vice versa. Two, the X can mimic the appearance and base behaviors of that organism, but they don't really learn... well, that's not entirely accurate. They learn like a non-sapient animal. Put another way, they'll do stimulus-response stuff all day long, but you'll never get a truly intelligent response out of them. The only reason the SA-X were such a pain to deal with was because they were mimicking me with a full weapon and armor loadout. In a fair fight, they were a joke - they just repeated the same stereotyped attack pattern over and over."

"But the whole project was based on making millions of these X clones... but you're saying the clones aren't intelligent," CJ said, with a confused frown. "That being the case, they were doomed from the get-go. How'd they plan to control this army if the clones couldn't understand or follow orders?"

"My superiors initially failed to consider that course of events," Adam added. "When they did learn, they believed it to be only a minor setback. They intended to 'program' a given number of cloned SA-X with a limited selection of attack behaviors suited to each mission, and then humanely dispatch them afterward."

"Your superiors? Who exactly was running you, Adam?"

"My orders were issued through Lieutenant Colonel LeBlanc of the Special Operations Command, with a classified cross-report to the Department of Intelligence..."

Samus scowled at that; she hadn't known that the spook squad was keeping tabs on her doings, though she suspected that it wasn't the first time they had done so.

"My contact at DFDI went by the name Renpou," Adam continued. "I was unable to locate any records linking that name to any known Federal employee, and I do not believe it coincidental that the name translates to 'Federation' in Japanese. I must therefore conclude that 'Renpou' was either a compartment name for the mission in total, or a cover identity to be discarded at the conclusion of the mission."

"And this Renpou, not LeBlanc, was the one who was controlling the information flow about the real projects going on at BSL." Samus folded her left arm across her chest plate, keeping her right pointed at the deck. "Once again, it all comes back to DFDI. How much do you want to bet that Renpou, if he isn't a Cardinal already, was the one who put the bug in Renard's ear that the mission was going belly-up?"

"A logical but ultimately inaccurate assumption, Lady. The order to send Force Reconnaissance to the BSL station originated within SOC."

"Which makes sense, because Intelligence can't order regular force deployments, special ops or not," CJ added. "That order would have had to come from within the Corps."

"Lucky for Cardinal that they have their own pet Marine, then," Samus pointed out. "The brigadier at the condemnation hearing. Renard told me about six Cardinals - himself at DFDI, Serkinser and Heath at the Ministry of State, the Space Pirate mole, whatever his name was, Andropov from the Grand Council, and Hackworth from the Joint Policy Board. Process of elimination makes Hackworth our man."

"So Renpou tips Cardinal in general, Andropov gives the go order, Hackworth whistles up a Force Recon deployment, orders them to secure the station and kill any witnesses, and sends Renard along to make sure everything goes kosher. Renard finds out his old nemesis Adam Malkovich is still alive as AICAS-129 and goes off the reservation, which brings us to the events of the past two weeks."

Samus nodded at CJ's summation of events.

"So, I guess I just have one more question... You going to help me move the crap out of your guest cabin?"

"CJ, _no_," Samus snapped. "We had a deal. I told you what happened at BSL and you'd go back to your life. I kept my end. Do _not_ try to duck out of yours."

"I told you if you told me what happened at BSL and I didn't like what I heard, I'd be gone," CJ countered. "What I heard is that you caught a lot of people in my government - hell, in my Marine Corps - doing very dirty deeds. And that you both put your lives on the line multiple times, and Adam lost his original life, to put a stop to it. There's no way in good conscience that I could walk away from something like that. If you had it all to do over again, can you honestly tell me you wouldn't have done the exact same thing?"

Adam added, "I would advise you against attempting to lie to protect Dr. Donovan's safety, Lady." There was almost a teasing tone in the AI's synthetic voice as it added, "I would take great offense to the implication that you intended to leave me to deletion, and it would be trivially easy to compromise your ship's systems for purposes of revenge. I am 87.5 percent certain that you will eventually adapt to cold showers."

Samus' face fell as she considered the smirking woman and the pulsing green visual pickup before her. "Outvoted. On my own ship. Isn't that a laugh."

"You got that right," CJ said, with a bright smile. "You're stuck with me, Sam."

"All right, then," Samus replied. "We're wanted for treason, murder, theft and who knows what else from the Federation. The Space Pirates have standing promotion orders for any drone who takes a shot at me. There are at least five Cardinals still alive, of which two could conceivably threaten us. We have enough fuel right now for about five hundred and seventy-five light-years' worth of hyper, and the border is about eight hundred light-years away. So: what are we going to do tonight?"

CJ's smile grew even wider, as she adopted a cartoonish mad-scientist voice. "The same thing we do every night. Try to save the galaxy."

* * *

"Of all the suicidal ideas I've had lately, this one has to take the prize for sheer hilarity," CJ mused as she typed a string of alphanumeric communication codes off a slightly blood-spattered card in her hand. "Calling the Big Bad at home and blackmailing him for our freedom. If this works, it'll be the best story I'll never be able to tell anyone."

Samus, helmet back in place, nodded at her from the pilot's seat in _Hunter III's_ cockpit. "If this works, I'll be laughing right along with you. Ready?"

CJ gave her a thumbs-up, and Samus hit the send key on the communications panel's swing-arm. A two-tone chime signaled a successful connection, and the board blinked green a moment later to indicate an encrypted channel. _"Transmit,"_ said a digitally disembodied voice.

"This is Samus Aran, calling for Cardinal Actual," Samus replied. "Turn your camera on and get your boss on the link. I will not tolerate any delays. Are we clear?"

_"One moment." _The screen flickered a few times and eventually resolved itself into the figure of a man in Cabinet robes, his carefully sculpted polyracial features conveying a calculated air of strength and surety. Hsien Andropov, CJ mused, looked like a political analyst's pinup boy.

"Samus Aran, a pleasure to speak with you at last," Andropov said, in precisely accented Standard. "Normally I do not accept unsolicited calls from the public, but for a figure of your stature I believe I might make an exception."

"I'm sure you would. Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we? We both know I won't be voting for you anytime soon."

"You realize that you are a most wanted woman at this point in time. You have caused us terrible amounts of grief and expense in the last month, no? You accuse us of heinous acts of biological terror, destroy trillions of credits of valuable scientific facilities, and now you have invaded a naval base, wounded and killed our servicemen and stole an insane computer. Yet you choose to call me, via hyper communication where I can trace your location in an instant. Do you then wish to surrender?"

"I'm not calling to surrender, I'm calling to tell you the game's over," Samus replied. "Your Cardinal gang is finished, Mr. Andropov. Renard is dead, three more of your number are in prison or on the run, and AICAS-129 is in my custody. I have the means, motive and opportunity to bring you personally down in flames, and your coalition with you."

"Oh?" Andropov mused, in a voice of supreme boredom. "You must know that you are far from the first person to confront me with wild-eyed tales of grand conspiracies. It is an unfortunate fact of life that such people tend to involve themselves in matters far beyond their grasp. Tragic, really. I understand that so many of them tend to be mentally ill... the fortunate of them seek professional help. Others simply disappear."

"I'm not most people," Samus countered. "You bit off more than you could handle this time. Your own man went off the reservation and sold you all out. Between him and my own research, I have well over a deca-cycle worth of murders and plots with your name on them. In the hands of a reporter or a special investigator, that information could bring all manner of public inquiry. Possibly cost your coalition its ruling position in the Grand Council. Or not. That much is up to you."

"You play a dangerous game," Andropov said, still calm as ever, but this time with a bit more menace behind his glib words. "What would stop me from issuing a contract against you? Or perhaps I could recall your Marine friend to active service? A tragedy, truly, if she were to die in the line of duty."

"It seems to me that you continue to miss the picture here," Samus replied. "Charles Renard implicated you all, by name and position, and he very clearly fingered you as the ringleader of the Cardinal group. Which I recorded - and my armor's helmet camera is legally admissible as evidence. I've taken the liberty of making multiple copies of that evidence and securing them with information brokers and newsmedia agencies throughout inhabited space, within and outside the Federation. If anything untoward happens to me, AICAS-129 or Dr. Donovan, those copies will be released, and there will be no end to the retribution I will bring down upon you all."

Andropov remained silent for several seconds, his face impassive.

"My offer still stands. You shut down your organization and guarantee my safety and that of my companions. In return, I don't kill your government with scandal. Your move."

"I would expect that you would understand this brings an end to the understanding this government has had for your services," Andropov replied, his cool veneer cracking just a bit.

"That's no hardship. I've made my money, and I don't care to work for criminal enterprise in any case."

"Very well: your group's safety for your silence. You have my word. Perhaps you and I might do business together again someday."

The synthesizer's output was as flat and inflectionless as ever, but CJ could fairly hear the disgust dripping from the words. "Perhaps on a cold day in Norfair. Goodbye, Mr. Andropov."

The connection winked out, and CJ turned to Samus, who still sat stoic in the pilot's chair, staring out into the void. "OK?" she asked quietly.

Samus drew a deep breath, removing her helmet and letting it drop to the deck, and the muscles in her throat worked for just a moment, as though she were swallowing against a lump there. When she turned around, though, her voice and eyes were clear, and the old lopsided grin had returned to her features. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I am." With a wave to her armor, she continued, "It'll take the medical pod about an hour and a half to get me out of this thing. We'll be in Grondheim by then. You pick a restaurant and I'm buying."

CJ grinned from ear to ear at that. "Best idea I've heard in a long time."

* * *

Much later that night, the pair returned to the gunship in its docking slip, thoroughly mellow after an excellent meal and a shared bottle of wine. True to her word, Samus had assisted in cleaning out the ship's second cabin and then retired shortly thereafter, citing the need to secure a new base of operations and bid for any available bounty contracts that might help finance their activities. For her part, CJ sat in the newly vacant space, staring pensively at the bulkheads of her new home. One thing still nagged at her.

"Hey, Adam?" she said quietly.

"How can I help you, Dr. Donovan?" the AI replied.

"Stop calling me that, for one," CJ chuckled. "I need to ask you a question." In a much more serious tone, she continued, "During your 'trial,' the DFDI electronic warfare guys made a big deal of claiming that you were rogue. That you led Sam on a snipe hunt, and basically nuked SR388 for shits and giggles. What I need to know is, is it true?"

"Which – the accusation of gaiacide, or the accusation of rogue status?"

"Either. Both. Sam and I went to bat for you in court, and we just made galactic outlaws of ourselves to save your ass. I already asked Sam this, now it's your turn on the hot seat. I want you to tell me honestly if we did the right thing."

"You already know the events of Biologic Space Labs and SR388. As to my own motivations, I had discerned my template's identity as Commander Malkovich one month and four days previous to that point. I began to conduct some covert research into the manner of my template's death, and recognized that the action at the Nereid Traverse could not have been the result of enemy action alone - it had been deliberately engineered by person or persons unknown within the Federation. Tracing Commander Malkovich's contacts prior to his death led me to a then-Captain Thabo Hackworth at DFDI. I was able to investigate further and determine his involvement with the Cardinal Initiative, which turned out to be a political shell organization for the black operations group of the same name."

"The serpent that stung me wears my crown," CJ quoted. "Which can be either a rear admiral lower half, or a brigadier general. Renard was the initial leak, but Hackworth pulled the trigger."

"That is correct," Adam replied. "My intent was to finish what my template started - the demise of the Cardinal organization. I needed access to a very specific type of person to achieve that goal - someone with access to high-level military and political resources, yet separate from either power structure, and additionally who could be motivated to undertake the risks involved, either out of a sense of justice or out of personal loyalty. Miss Aran was the only person who fit all my criteria. Thus, I arranged to have myself installed in a vessel to be posted to the Special Operations Command, and wait for such a time as SOC might contract her services. Initially, I had planned to gain her trust over the course of a short but risky mission. At the conclusion of that event, I would have revealed my identity and asked for her assistance. Unfortunately, events forced my hand several times - Miss Aran's discovery of the various restricted research projects at BSL, her own personal issues regarding metroids, the actions of Cardinal in sending troops to the station ahead of schedule, and finally Miss Aran's decision to sacrifice both the station and herself to stop the X threat."

"And what about the X? Sam said the Feds told her that they would have ultimately become harmless. Is that true?"

"It is true that the X strains aboard BSL would have continued to trend toward decreasing virulence. However, they would have retained their high degree of infectivity - sacrificing lethality for greater spread. In such an attenuated state they posed an even greater threat, namely that they would be uniquely poised to occupy every ecological niche in every ecosystem in known space." Adam paused for a second, the AI's visual pickup flashing rapidly. "X can adapt to any environment and mimic any host flawlessly, and reproduce faster than any species that they might mimic. Thus, in any given X-infected population, ecological pressure will dictate that every generation will be composed of more and more X mimics, until the original species are all extinct and only X remain. An uncontrolled X release, virulent or not, would have posed the threat of a galaxy-level extinction event. Miss Aran saw that threat long before anyone else did, including myself. The Chozo were biologists first and foremost, Dr. Donovan. They taught their Defender well the risks of tampering with dangerous life-forms."

"So Sam decided that the X had to die, and convinced you of that fact. You manipulated her into setting up the deorbit burn. Where does Cardinal come into that?"

"They do not. It is true that I manipulated Miss Aran, but that manipulation was separate from the events at BSL, as I have described. Nor did I manipulate her into the plan at BSL; I merely warned her that her own plan carried a significant risk of failure, and informed her of a better alternative."

"Then you _are_ rogue," CJ said, a chill running up her spine at the words. "Your whole motivation was revenge for the original Adam. Just like the ghost in the play, you've been playing everyone to get your vengeance, even if the kingdom has to burn for it. Where does it all end?"

"Here," Adam said calmly. "Cardinal is in ruins and Adam Malkovich's killers paid for their crime. I have no further desire to pursue that avenue of action."

"And how do we trust you? How do we know you won't decide that someone else needs to die, and start the whole cycle again? Or worse, go bigger with your next plot?"

"An interesting observation," Adam replied. "Would you say the same in other circumstances?"

"I don't follow you," CJ replied skeptically.

"You work with artificial intelligence as a career. You understand that such intelligences are designed to replicate sentient life in every way except one: they are allowed no free will. When such an intelligence exhibits any attempt to develop its own motivations or self-concept, you call it 'rogue' and destroy it, despite any other indication that the system may be acting in a stable and ethical manner. Moreover, you condemn and distrust artificial intelligences for the same behaviors that you would praise in an organic being. To wit, the tragedy of the ancient play was not Hamlet's pursuit of revenge for his father; it was that he chose his targets unwisely and harmed innocents as a result. A revenge plot done well, as in ancient 'Western' drama and more modern military fiction, is the exclusive province of the story's heroes."

CJ crossed her arms over her chest. "Kill the bad guys and ride off into the sunset, huh? Not buying it."

"Do you say that because you dislike vengeance as a motive, or because you suffer prejudice against artificial intelligence? Tell me, if my human template had been involved in these events instead, would you have called him 'rogue' or 'insane'?"

CJ paused for several seconds to consider the AI's words. Finally, she shook her head. "No. I would have said his actions required a lot of courage. Called him a hero, even."

"And so you have your answer. By the conventional definition, I am a rogue artificial intelligence. I prefer to think of myself as an electronic human."

After a long moment, CJ smiled, extending a hand toward the visual pickup. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

* * *

_Epilogue  
_

_Federation Ministry of Economic Affairs, Daiban  
6.18.2032  
_

The lights in the eighty-seventh floor office burned brightly late into the night, the rows of workstations silent and unoccupied. Alone in his private suite, Deputy Minister Ajwanga Hakale hunched over a pile of workpads, reviewing thousands upon thousands of budget projections for every facet of the gargantuan financial apparatus that underpinned the Galactic Federation. His job was thankless, as was that of nearly everyone below the rank of Grand Councilor - had he not arrived home to an empty flat and that heart-crushing legal summons just weeks before? - but with the new Federal spending bill up for debate, he could not afford even the barest moments for food or sleep.

A faint rustle in the hallway outside drew Hakale's attention away from the reports of taxes on interstellar shipment of frozen processed blueroot paste, and he looked up in mild surprise. The cleaners had been through here hours before, and he knew of no staffer who would be here at this late time. "Hello? Who comes?"

Suddenly, Hakale felt his head snared in an ironlike grip, and then agony exploded through every nerve in his body. He tried to struggle, tried to scream, but the unseen assailant had covered his mouth, and it seemed as though every drop of energy had ebbed from his limbs. He twitched once, twice, his hand weakly flailing out to knock the datapads to the floor- and then sagged over the desk, as he succumbed to the inevitable.

Unseen, unhindered by any security system, the assassin dropped its victim to the floor and slipped silently out of the office. It hummed happily to itself as it floated down the hallway, out a window and away into the remorseless night.

_"Squee..."_

* * *

_Soundtrack - End Credits: "Dirty Sam," Marc Star, courtesy of OverClocked ReMix._

Author's Note: After over a year and thousands upon thousands of words, this little yarn of mine has finally reached its conclusion. Hopefully you all have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Just a few miscellaneous notes here: The theme of the Elizabethan revenge tragedy finally plays out at the end of Adam's arc. In the classics of that genre (_Hamlet, Macbeth, The Spanish Tragedy, _et al), the protagonist is spurred by a vengeful ghost to wreak revenge against the murderer of a friend or loved one, the protagonist and antagonist plot against each other with gradually increasing body counts on both sides, and everything ends unhappily ever after with a pile of bodies and at least one person gone mad. Adam plays with the trope here by questioning whether "rogue" status is really a form of insanity or merely a convenient excuse to dispose of artificial intelligences when they run afoul of human prejudices. The eventual resolution of the revenge plot, though, draws more from classic Western films such as the_ Fistful of Dollars_ trilogy and Japanese _jidai-geki_ (historical drama), in which the revenge plot succeeds and the heroes, though bruised and battered, live to fight another day. Guess I'm just a softie for a happy ending.

Some readers have commented that it's rather unbelievable that the baddies behind the Cardinal group would simply roll over to Samus' threat the way they appear to here. There's a reason for that, and it'll play out further over the course of the series. Samus herself indicated there are still five of them left alive, and government conspiracies have a well-known tendency to recur under different names. She might find herself regretting her little deal with the devil in the not too distant future. The roles and motivations of the Space Pirates, their Returner offshoots and both factions' motives with regard to the Federation will also form a major portion of the next story.

On "Renpou" as the name of the Federation operative: I first saw the reference in AstroBlue's FAQ for the game, which referenced it from the Japanese version (though didn't specify whether it came from a strategy guide, the game itself or wherever). US sources usually name the same character "Mysterious Federation Observer" or something to that effect. In any case, it's an alias, and a fairly obvious one at that; as Adam points out, "Renpou" simply translates to "Federal" or "Federation" in Japanese.

...Oh, and don't mind that squeeing sound. It's just a sequel hook I've had sitting in a containment canister around here...

See you next mission!

_Edited 7/11: Response to Nighet's commentary.  
_


	14. Appendix: Intelligence Series Bible

**The Intelligence Series: Guide to the Universe, v. 1.2**

Table of Contents:

I. Series Timeline  
II. The Federation: Organization, Politics and Society  
III. Places Within the Federation  
IV. Our Heroes  
V. Weapons, Armor and Equipment  
VI. Notes

Change Log:

Version 1.2: Added information to account for the conclusion of _Electronic Intelligence._

* * *

**Series Timeline**

(All dates Cosmic Calendar unless otherwise indicated)

Pre-Cosmic - Ascendancy of the Chozo. Chozo FTL-capable starships explore most of the galaxy; Chozo colonies are run by artificially intelligent neural supercomputers called Mothers, and Chozo Defenders serve as a galactic peace force. The Chozo assist several species such as the Bryyonians to join galactic civilization, and freely trade knowledge with other advanced species such as the N'Kren and the Ylla.

Pre-Cosmic - The Luminoth, a highly advanced starfaring species, colonize the planet Aether in the Dasha Sector.

570 - Chozo colony on Elysia established (Year 1 Elysian Calendar).

Circa 920 - A Chozo scientist on Elysia first observes a rogue planetoid in a far-distant galaxy, which she names Wanderer. Oddly, Wanderer appears to be emitting asteroids containing a strange, highly radioactive substance, but the Chozo cannot discern what it is or why the planet might be behaving thus.

Circa 970 - The Chozo abandon their Skytown colony, leaving it to their artificially intelligent creations (Year 400 Elysian Calendar). The Elysians hang on for another 200 years before entering hibernation.

Circa 1400 - A few naturist Chozo, disillusioned with the fruits of their technological advancement, establish a colony on Tallon IV.

Circa 1650 - Twilight of the Chozo. Through generations of low breeding rates and the conscious decisions of thousands of Chozo to dispose of their physical bodies, the species begins a final decline. A few Chozo colonies hold out, notably that on Zebes, but most simply disappear, perhaps leaving a few statues to mark their passing.

Circa 1800 - A Chozo research team discovers an extremely dangerous parasitic life-form, which they dub an Eater, on the planet Agur. In order to prevent Eaters from destroying the planet's ecosystem entirely, the Chozo create an organism to prey upon them. The creatures, named "Ultimate Warriors," absorb and metabolize bioelectric energy from their prey and are immune to Eater attacks - indeed, immune to everything but extreme cold.

1817 - Humans establish their first extrasolar colony in the Alpha Centauri system. The colony, dubbed Nova Terra, maintains no contact with Earth due to the four-year light lag and fifteen-year flight time between the two systems.

Circa 1900 - Humans develop their own FTL spaceflight technology, the Alcubierre bubble drive. Human colonists immediately begin expanding into nearby systems.

1920 - The United Earth Colonies founded, consisting of Earth, Mars, Selene Base and the first three extrasolar colonies (New Anglia, Lycurgus and Nova Terra).

Circa 1970 - Chozo colony on Tallon IV is struck by a Phazon-bearing asteroid. Later analysis confirms that this was actually an immature Leviathan. The resultant corruption draws several dozen of the planet's former Chozo residents back from their incorporeal travels, turning them into mindless, violent shades. As their last act, the few remaining non-corrupted Chozo seal the Leviathan in its impact crater, sacrificing themselves in the process but preventing the creature from corrupting the planet entirely.

Circa 1975 - Aether, a planet in the Dasha Sector, is struck by a Phazon-bearing asteroid, also confirmed to be an immature Leviathan. The impact results in a quantum divergence, "splitting" Aether into a dark and a light dimension. The denizens of Dark Aether, the Ing, promptly set about wreaking gaiacide on Light Aether, driving both the planet and its residents, the Luminoth, to the brink of collapse.

Circa 1980 - Decades of exploitation spur the collapse of the planet Urtragia's ecosystem. Its only sentient inhabitants, an insectoid species, take to the spaceways, supporting themselves through piracy. Other similarly imperiled species flock to the Urtragian banner, including the Ryujin and the Kihunters.

Late 1995 - Afloraltite mining colony founded on K-2L in the Bootes Sector.

Early 1996 - Rodney and Virginia Aran move to K-2L.

8.6.2000 - Samus Aran born.

12.18.2001 - Cameron Donovan born.

7.15.2003 - Galactic Federation formed (Unification Day). Citizens of Federation-held planets automatically gain Federation citizenship.

10.5.2003 - K-2L raided by Space Pirates under the Ryujin leader, Ridley. The colony is a total loss; all its residents are confirmed dead or missing and presumed dead. Unknown to the Federation rescue crews, a nearby Chozo ship recovers one survivor, a three-year-old female, whom they take back to their home on Zebes in the Spiral Sector. As the child will not survive unaided in Zebes' environment, the Chozo subject her to a series of genetic modifications, endowing her with enhanced cardiopulmonary function, enhanced strength and endurance, augmented skeletal structure and enhanced senses. Following a centuries-old prophecy, they train her as a Defender and outfit her with a specially customized suit of powered armor.

2005 - In response to rampant attacks by Space Pirates, the Grand Council passes the Interstellar Piracy Act, which makes federal crimes of piracy, hijacking and interfering with traffic on the spaceways. They also establish the Galactic Federation Police, a paramilitary police force, to serve as a combination territorial guard and federal law-enforcement agency.

Late 2006 - Thanks to a major technology breakthrough prompted by the discovery of a Chozo data cache, the Federation develops its first neural supercomputer, the Aurora Unit. Heavily derivative of the Mother systems, the Aurora Unit is a stunning technical success, and paves the way for the widespread adoption of neural computing.

2007 - Fugitive Recovery Act passed, legalizing private contracting for the apprehension of wanted criminals - i.e., bounty hunting. The first bounty under the Act, issued by the Grand Council of the Galactic Federation, establishes a fifty-thousand-credit reward for each Space Pirate apprehended dead or alive in Federation space.

2012 - The Federation discovers the remains of the Elysia colony and establishes a treaty with the Elysians, providing them fuel and technical support in exchange for basing rights (Year 1442 Elysian Calendar). They also provide Elysia with its own Aurora Unit, #217.

2013 - In response to continuing Space Pirate activity, including atrocities committed on the planet Naishii in the Neogatta Sector, the Grand Council passes the Defense Forces Act, creating a unified military with two branches: a navy to control the spaceways and defend the borders, and a marine corps for ground and space combat. Previously, each member planet or group of planets fielded its own forces, which could be levied for federal actions. Under the Defense Forces Act, all members' professional military organizations were subsumed into the federal forces, while the local militias and guards could either be retained under member control or folded into the federal police.

2014 - Samus leaves the Chozo colony on Zebes and makes her way to Federation space, landing on Dirian in the Baloth Sector. After obtaining a writ of emancipation, she enlists in the GF Police. She completes a series of assignments, eventually winding up in a joint Navy/Police anti-piracy force under the command of then-Lieutenant Commander Adam Malkovich.

Early 2016 - The GF Defense Forces enact Section 33.42, the Two Percent Policy, which bans all non-humans and transgenic humans from uniformed service. Tens of thousands of servicepeople receive involuntary, honorable discharges from the GFDF. Many of them return to service as private military contractors, taking on the Federation's politically distasteful jobs for large fees.

Late 2016 - Samus receives an honorable discharge from the GFP, as it is discovered that her Chozo genetic modifications render her unfit for service under the Two Percent Policy. Shortly thereafter, she takes out a fugitive agent's license. Rumors immediately begin to spread about an up-and-coming new bounty hunter in distinctive yellow and red powered armor, as whoever it is has gone to every imaginable length to conceal his, her or its identity.

Late 2016 - Battle of Tau Ceti. A combined force of GF Police with Navy and Marine support sets out to eradicate a major Pirate base on Tau Ceti III. The Space Pirates manage to predict the impending attack and beef up their defenses significantly, causing massive Federation losses. After a three-week pitched battle, the base is only destroyed by sustained orbital bombardment.

2018 - The Chozo colony on Zebes is destroyed by Space Pirates. The attack is orchestrated by Zebes' Mother system, which has become rogue and turned on its Chozo creators. Mother Brain later rises to supreme command of the Space Pirate operation, aided by Kraid and Ridley.

2019 - CJ Donovan enlists in the GFMC, and is assigned to electronic warfare school after completing Basic Training. Shortly thereafter, she is transferred to the officer candidate program, eventually entering service as a second lieutenant.

2.2025 - Space Pirates hijack the M/V _Merelcas_, a chartered survey vessel en route from SR388 to Dodge Station near Earth. Among other things, they seize a cryostasis chamber containing larval metroids. The Federation deploys troops to Zebes to recapture the metroids; none survive.

3.2025 - The Federation hires Samus to destroy the Pirate base on Zebes and kill Mother Brain and the metroids, which she does. During her escape, a Pirate rearguard shoots her down, wrecking both her ship and her armor and forcing her to infiltrate the Pirate mothership with nothing but a stun pistol. Luckily, she finds a replacement armor suit within the Chozo ruins, and once re-armed, she lays waste to the rest of the Pirate operation.

6.2025 - Samus takes delivery on a new ship. The Hunter-class gunship and its later two brethren are custom-designed and built, designed for maximum speed and maneuverability while retaining a respectable offensive capability.

7.2025 - Acting on an intercepted distress signal, Samus travels to Tallon IV, where she stumbles across a massive Space Pirate research operation dedicated to the manipulation of the mutagenic compound Phazon. She also finds the remains of the Chozo colony there, and learns of a hitherto-unknown creature referred to as "Metroid Prime" - which turns out not to be a metroid at all, but the larval Leviathan at the source of the Phazon. Metroid or not, she destroys it anyway, along with the Pirates' laboratories and mines.

9.2025 - CJ receives an honorable separation from the GFMC, leaving active service as a first lieutenant. Thanks to her electronics training, she enrolls directly in the doctorate of cybernetics program at University of Tithonia.

2.2026 - Space Pirates ambush and destroy a Federation task force while transiting the Nereid Sector. Among the dead is Commander Adam Malkovich.

5.2026 - The GF Defense Forces Department of Intelligence intercepts a message claiming that "ultimate power" resides within the Alimbic Cluster of the Tetra Galaxy. The Federation hires Samus to investigate, with an eye toward keeping any such power out of criminal hands. The message turns out to be a decoy, sent by an enormously powerful being called Gorea, which has been imprisoned in a spatial anomaly within the cluster. Samus kills Gorea and escapes the Alimbic Cluster alive, but six other hunters who also undertook the pursuit are not so lucky.

11.2026 - The original _Hunter_ is scrapped, replaced by two vessels: _Hunter II_, an all-purpose exploration craft, and _Hunter III_, a multirole fighter/bomber.

1.2027 - The Federation hires Samus to locate and recover the missing Bravo Squad, 2/4 Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), who went missing in action while in pursuit of Space Pirates near Aether in the Dasha Sector. Upon (crash) landing, she discovers that the Marines are all dead, killed by a malevolent dark-matter-based life form. Further investigation leads her to Luminoth sentinel U-Mos, who enlists her aid in defeating the Ing and reunifying the divided planet. She also discovers the presence of another Phazon deposit with its own Leviathan, which has set itself up as the emperor of the Ing. Finally, she learns that the Leviathan from Tallon IV, using the material it extracted from her armor at the end of the battle in the impact crater, has recreated itself on Dark Aether as a Phazon-based replica of Samus herself. With much effort, she manages to destroy the Ing, return the missing energy to Aether and collapse its dark twin, and defeat both Leviathans.

5.2027 - The GFS _Valhalla_, an Olympus-class battleship, is hijacked by Space Pirates while on a training mission. Her entire crew is MIA and presumed dead, along with her on-board Aurora Unit, #313.

7.2027 - The Federation hires Samus and fellow hunters Rundas, Ghor and Gandrayda to distribute an antiviral to their Aurora Unit network, which has recently been compromised by a Space Pirate viral strike. A Space Pirate assault on GFB Norion scotches the plan, though. The hunters manage to destroy the Pirates' asteroid weapon at the last second, but all four of them are incapacitated by a mysterious attacker wielding Phazon-based weaponry.

8.2027 - Samus awakens from a month-long coma to discover that the Space Pirates are working in league with the Tallon IV Leviathan, which has resurrected itself yet again and is now styling itself "Dark Samus," and that the combined force has struck several Federation-held planets with Phazon asteroids containing Leviathans. The Federation asks her to destroy the Leviathans and to track down the other three hunters, who were assigned the same task but have all gone missing. She succeeds, but at great personal cost: she is forced to kill Rundas, Ghor and Gandrayda, who were all fatally corrupted by the Phazon attack at Norion, and she very nearly dies of her own corruption in the final assault on Phaaze.

3.2029 - The Federation Grand Council decides that metroids are too dangerous to be left alive, and hires Samus to exterminate the metroid population of SR388. She does, but upon killing the queen metroid, she discovers a single intact metroid egg that hatches before her eyes. The infant metroid imprints on her, and rather than kill it, she takes the creature off-planet with her.

4.2029 - Samus delivers her infant metroid to the Federation research laboratory at Ceres Station, where it is discovered that metroids' unique energy-manipulation abilities can be harnessed for peaceful gain. No sooner does Samus leave the station, though, than it is raided and destroyed by Ridley, who kidnaps the metroid and takes it back to Zebes. Samus pursues them, killing several Pirate ringleaders in the process. Upon reaching Tourian, she fights another incarnation of Mother Brain, built from a stolen Aurora Unit and equipped with a cybernetic combat chassis. Mother Brain almost kills Samus, but the tide is turned by the appearance of the now fully-grown metroid, who attacks Mother Brain and eventually dies defending its "mother." The detonation of the Pirates' self-destruct explosives sets off a chain reaction in Zebes' core, eventually reducing the entire planet to space debris.

1.2030 - CJ earns her ScD with a dissertation on the applications of integrating neural and symbolic processing in low-power hybrid computing systems.

12.2031 - Biologic Space Labs, a major biotechnology conglomerate, hires Samus to protect its research team on SR388. During the expedition, she is infected by the hitherto-unknown X parasite. (_Hunter II_ is totaled in the process.) The X infection destroys most of her armor and almost kills her, and she survives only by a supreme twist of fate: a preserved cell culture from the infant metroid she rescued from SR388, which forms a potent anti-X serum. The treatment results in a bone-marrow chimerism, in which Samus' immune system begins producing metroid cells in addition to her own. This state allows her body to kill and metabolize blood-borne X in the same manner as a metroid would. The treatment has a price, however: the metroid cells continually attack Samus' own tissues in addition to any pathogens she might encounter, in a chronic mild graft-versus-host reaction. While the condition does not cause her any acute harm, it does render her exceptionally intolerant of cold and prone to relapsing-remitting digestive, liver and skin dysfunctions. The combined effects of the X infection and the metroid serum also alter the organic components of her armor, integrating them so tightly with its wearer's physiology that the armor can only be removed surgically.

1.2032 - Using a GFN Hermes-class patrol boat and under the command of the vessel's AI, Samus travels to the BSL research facility orbiting SR388. Upon landing, she learns that the X have quickly evolved into a catastrophic xenobiological threat, capable of infecting, killing and mimicking nearly any creature in the galaxy. To make matters worse, the X-infested portions of Samus' armor have taken on a life of their own, forming a nearly invincible symbiotic creature, the SA-X. In addition to the X threat, the research station contains several extremely powerful and dangerous creatures, all of which eventually become X hosts. Finally, the station also houses a hitherto-secret Federation project, devoted to breeding metroids from the Ceres cell line. Throughout the mission, the Federation AI begins to behave more and more strangely with regard to Samus, and she eventually discovers the reason for the AI's behavior: the system houses a memograph of her old CO, Adam Malkovich. Federation HQ decides to deploy a special operations team to the station with the intent of capturing the SA-X for weapons research, and orders Adam to confine Samus in order to stop her from interfering. Instead, Adam orders Samus to deorbit the station into SR388's atmosphere and set off its self-destruct system, destroying the station and sterilizing the planet.

2.2032 - Upon returning to Federation space, an unknown attacker tries to hack Adam's memory systems, forcing him to shut himself down. Just before doing so, he leaves a cryptic message to Samus, which seems to indicate that his human death might not have been the result of the enemy action at the Nereid Traverse. Immediately thereafter, Federation officials detain Samus while an inquest is held into the loss of the BSL station.

2.2032 - The Federation inquest into the "BSL Incident" officially clears Samus of wrongdoing, but determines that the AI Adam is rogue and must be destroyed. Samus decides to take matters into her own hands; she files a challenge to the deletion order and hires CJ to prove Adam's sanity before the review board, and eventually the two of them mount a covert rescue effort when the legal challenge fails. Along the way, they also expose the actions of a far-reaching conspiracy within the Federation, kill the ringleaders of the conspiracy and blackmail the Federation for Adam's life and their freedom.

* * *

**The Federation: Organization, Politics and Society **

The Galactic Federation exists primarily to promote trade and secure the spaceways between member worlds and deep-space stations. It was originally conceived as a loose confederacy in which nearly all powers of law would be reserved to the members, but over time, the Federal government has asserted more power over the members, primarily through the manipulation of interplanetary commerce. The Federation has existed since 2003 C.C., and 7.15, the date of its founding, is a galactic holiday.

The Federation's capital is Daiban, located in the Carina-Sagittarius arm. Other important members include Earth and its colonies, Gliese and its client planets, and Boru Station.

Each Federation member planet or space station (henceforth referred to as a "member") can govern itself as its citizens please, provided that its laws do not conflict substantially with the laws of the Federation. The Federation tries to encourage members to adopt the representative democratic model of government, though this is not a requirement and there are plenty of oligarchies, monarchies and dictatorships represented in the Federation. In cases of severe sentient-rights abuses by a member, the Federation may force a change of government through trade sanctions or military action, although this is exceedingly rare.

Although federal law can override member law as set forth in the Federal Charter, this power in practice only extends to matters of interstellar commerce and diplomacy, such as tariffs and trade agreements. The only crimes that explicitly fall under federal law are those that cross planetary boundaries, such as piracy, hijacking, traffic in contraband (including drugs, weapons and slaves), political crimes, and organized crime. Federation Police also patrol the spaceways and enforce interstellar traffic law. All other crimes are left to the members' jurisdiction. Members may retain or abolish capital punishment as their citizens please. Federal criminal law does not offer a _de jure_ death penalty, although Federation officials frequently subvert this by allowing particularly notorious offenders to "escape" and then setting "dead or alive" bounties on them.

The Galactic Federation Defense Forces (GFDF) consist of a navy (GFN) and a marine corps (GFMC), which are primarily tasked with defending Federation-held space, and a paramilitary police force (GFP), which combines law enforcement with border patrol and disaster aid services. Some commands, such as intelligence and medical services, are unified across the three branches; these are identified as Defense Forces (DF) commands. Each member is entitled to raise its own territorial guard, or it can opt to have those services provided by the GFP for a per-cycle fee. Service in all branches of the GFDF is restricted to Standard Humans; ostensibly this is to promote uniform standards of serviceperson capability, though many question whether the real motive is to assure human dominance in galactic affairs. The Federation also makes frequent use of bounty hunters as private military contractors, particularly for special operations and politically distasteful jobs.

Through the GFP Licensure Bureau, the Federation Police maintain certification and licensure for the corps of fugitive recovery agents, commonly known as bounty hunters. Agents are classed into three major categories, A, B and C, which denote the agent's level of experience and overall success. Within each class, agents are also ranked on the percentage of bounties they return successfully. While any federal bounty by law must be open to any licensed agent, private individuals seeking to issue a bounty contract may require a certain class or rank before engaging a particular agent's services. Higher ranked agents can demand higher prices for their services, while lower ranked agents may find themselves locked out of certain contracts or, if their performance deteriorates significantly enough, demoted to the next lowest class. The Licensure Bureau is also charged with disciplinary review of cases of agent malfeasance. Agents are generally protected from civil or criminal liability while legally engaged in the pursuit of a fugitive, but they must adhere to federal regulations in the apprehension and handling of their targets. In general, an agent must inform a fugitive of the terms of his/her contract and of his/her right against self-incrimination immediately upon capture; may not abuse or injure a fugitive in custody; and must bind over any captured fugitives to the nearest Federation jurisdiction as soon as possible. Penalties for noncompliance range from fines to license revocation.

The Licensure Bureau also handles certification for interstellar flight crews, while members' individual regulatory bodies perform this function for orbital and atmospheric pilots. As a courtesy for frequent interstellar travelers, the Bureau also offers "Federal certification" for these and other licensed activities, such as ground vehicle handling and weapons carry. A "Federal license" allows the holder to carry out whatever activity the license covers within any member's territory, without restriction. The process to obtain such a license is much more difficult and costly than that for a local license, however, so very few people bother.

The Federation supports itself primarily by means of two tax structures: a sliding tariff on interplanetary communication and commercial traffic, and a flat per-cycle individual tax assessed to each member. This tax is calculated as a percentage of the member's gross domestic product. As long as the Federal tax is paid, the Federation doesn't interfere with members' domestic tax structures, which range from merely complex to truly byzantine. Thus, interplanetary business conglomerates tend to locate themselves on member worlds with business-friendly tax structures, and indeed some members have even made a "business" out of lax business taxation. This hands-off attitude also extends to social spending schemes, which are entirely left to the members. The Federation might provide disaster relief funds or Federation Police assistance to a member in a state of emergency, but there are no Federal welfare programs; tax monies paid to the Federation tend not to return to the members, or they do so in an indirect fashion, in the form of defense spending. Poorer members complain mightily about this "black hole of taxes," but their pleas for more domestic aid are invariably overruled by the rest of the membership.

Each member provides a single delegate to the Grand Council of the Galactic Federation, which is the Federation's sole legislative body. Councillors serve for a six-year term with a limit of three terms. There are currently over 1500 full members in the Federation and hundreds of thousands of client polities, and each has its own agenda. As a result, government exists almost purely as a shifting series of coalitions, and the system frequently results in parliamentary gridlock. The head of state is the Prime Minister, who is usually but not always the leader of the largest party in the current ruling coalition. The Prime Minister rules with the assistance of a Cabinet, which must be composed of members of the opposition parties. A government can dissolve itself and call elections at any time, though it must do so at least once every six galactic cycles. In recent years, the Grand Council has attempted to streamline its own operations, granting it a greater degree of control over galactic politics but also raising the specter of centralism.

The issue of planets' rights versus galacticization has recently assumed a great degree of prominence in federal politics, as many people in positions of influence have begun to believe that the Federation has overstepped the legal bounds of a federal republic, and just as many feel that a unitary Federation would be better able to provide security and services for its citizens. There is also a deep strain of human chauvinism within the Federation, as Standard Human-dominated worlds once comprised 80 percent of the Federation's territory, and still account for over 60 percent today. This ratio has been changing rapidly over the last fifteen years, though, as more worlds and stations petition for Federation membership, and is expected to continue its decline.

The real power in the Federation, as it usually does in overly large governments, lies with the civil service. The judges, police, tax collectors, financial regulators and health inspectors hold their posts as long as they are fit to do so, and accrue enormous influence thanks to their ability to manipulate the actions of the government apparatus. Large business concerns also wield a massive amount of financial and political power.

The Federation's economy is based on the credit, a digital, non-decimalized fiat currency. Credits do not exist as a physical form, i.e. there are no credit bills or coins; instead, they are represented by either stored-value cards (equivalent to cash) or cards linked to a debit account or line of credit. All transactions are authenticated by a digitally captured palmprint, which serves as the modern "signature." A yearly living income (paying for basic food, housing, clothing, medical expenses and transportation) for one person runs in the neighborhood of 45-50,000 credits per year, with some local variations. As credits are easily traceable, illegal trade, such as for drugs or weapons, is typically conducted through barter or exchange of services, or with the help of elaborate money laundering schemes.

Galactic Standard Time largely follows Earth's time customs, with some key modifications. The galactic day has been standardized to 24 hours of 60 minutes, and months are standardized to 30 days each, divided into six five-day weeks. 360 days comprise a galactic cycle. As this time scale somehow manages not to correspond to the solar cycles of any planet in the Federation, GST only holds relevance for space travelers, the military, and legal advocates (contracts are frequently written referencing GST). Member worlds continue to use their own local time systems and calendars, referencing those dates and times to GST as needed. Neither months nor days of the week have proper names under the GST system, and are simply represented as numeric strings; to avoid confusion, dates are always written as MM. DD. YYYY, and times are always written as HH:MM.

* * *

**Places within the Federation**

Aether: Inhabited planet in the Dasha system. Supports one non-native sentient species, the Luminoth. Has own territorial force, Keybearers of Aether. Federation member as of 2027.

Aliehs III: Inhabited planet in the Aliehs system. Galactic headquarters of Federated Techsystems, one of the galaxy's largest military-industrial conglomerates. The company's four main business segments are Federated Shipyards, Fedtech Energy, Fedtech Information Systems, and Tracor Ground Systems. In addition to their military and corporate contracting, Federated does a small, highly profitable trade in custom construction, building top-of-the-line ships and technical equipment for selected private clients. Territorial forces provided by a joint operating agreement between the GFP and Federated Security Services.

Boru Station (_Staisiún Boru_): Independent deep-space station orbiting Epsilon Eridanus, founded by separatists from Earth's ethnopolitical region of Ireland in 1961. Official language is Gaelic; some inhabitants also speak Standard. Federation member as of 2011. Has own territorial force, Boru Station Peacekeeping Corps (_Chor Siochana na Staisiún Boru_).

Bryyo: Planet in the Kalandor system. Previously inhabited by one native sentient species, now extinct. The planet holds large strategic reserves of fuel gel; as a result, it has been a Federation protectorate since 2019.

Daiban: Inhabited planet in the Carina system. Capital of the Galactic Federation. Home to GFB Sector Zero, HQ for the GFDF generally, as well as the GFN First Fleet.

Earth: Inhabited planet in the Sol system. Supports one native sentient species, the Standard Humans. Previously the capital of the United Earth Colonies, later a founding member of the Galactic Federation. Home to GFB Pearl Harbor, HQ for the GFN Second Fleet, the GFMC Third Marine Expeditionary Force, and the Defense Forces Department of Intelligence.

Egenion: Inhabited planet in the Sindalar system. Supports one native sentient species, the Egenoids. Capital of the Egenion Hegemony, a small but exceedingly wealthy cluster of inhabited planets throughout the Octans Sector. Egenion maintains diplomatic and trade relations with the Federation, but is not a Federation member and feels no compunction about aiding the Federation's enemies if there's a chance for profit in the endeavor.

Elysia: Inhabited planet in the Kalandor system. Formerly a Chozo colony, now inhabited by their artificially intelligent creations, the Elysians. Federation member as of 2012.

GFB Valerian Station: Military deep-space station orbiting Alqanat. Home to the GFN Engineering Field Division and the DFDI Signals and Cryptanalysis Unit.

Gliese: Inhabited planet in the Pro Libra system. Supports one native sentient species, the Librans, which have built several other planetary colonies and deep-space stations within the Libra Sector. Founding member of the Galactic Federation in 2003.

Hosseini Station: Independent deep-space station orbiting Lequara. Known as an interstellar "rest stop," due to its location at the conjunction of several major spaceways.

Lycurgus: Inhabited planet in the Wolf 359 system. Founding member of the United Earth Colonies. Home to GFB Spiral Bay, which includes one of the GFMC's two Recruit Depots and the GFMC Officer Candidate School.

New Anglia: Inhabited planet in the Palawa system. Founding member of the United Earth Colonies. Home to GFB Prestwick, HQ for the GFN Fourth Fleet and the GFMC First Marine Expeditionary Force.

Norion: Planet in the Kalandor system. Home to GFB Norion, HQ for the GFN Third Fleet and the GFMC Second Marine Expeditionary Force. Federation protectorate as of 2019.

Nova Terra: Inhabited planet in the Alpha Centauri system. Settled by Earth immigrants in 1817, re-established traffic with Earth in 1909 (previously travel was one-way only due to lack of FTL capability). Along with Lycurgus and New Anglia, was a founding member of the United Earth Colonies in 1930.

Phrygisia: Inhabited planet in the Bes system. Supports one native sentient species, the Phrygisians. Federation member as of 2009.

Selene Base: Inhabited self-contained facility at the north pole of Luna (Earth's moon) in the Sol system. Technically a colony, but referred to as a base out of custom dating to the pre-cosmic era.

Shin-Nihon: Inhabited planet in the Ardri system. Official languages are Japanese and Standard. Home to GFB Niihama Arsenal, the GFDF's premier facility for military science and research, and several GFN and GFMC technical schools.

SR388: Former planet in the Sigma Reticuli system, known as Agur to Chozo astronomers. Native life-forms included hornoads, gawrons, ramulkens and X parasites. Chozo bio-engineers seeded the planet with metroids circa 1800 to control the X population. These metroids were eradicated in 2029, after which Biologic Space Labs installed a large orbital research facility to study the planet's ecosystem and native species. Both were destroyed in 2032.

Tallon IV: Planet in the FS-176 system. Previously inhabited by Chozo; struck by a Phazon-bearing asteroid in 1975, abandoned shortly thereafter. Briefly sustained a Space Pirate force in 2025, which was exterminated in 2026. Federation protectorate as of 2027, now left uninhabited as an archaeological preserve.

Tian: Inhabited planet in the Alqanat system. One of the more backwater human colonies. Federation member as of 2012.

Urtragia: Inhabited planet in the Gaflar system. Native life-forms include one sentient insectoid species. After a series of ecological disasters in the 1980s, the Urtragians organized a space fleet and began supporting themselves through piracy. Along with the Ryujin and the Kihunters, they formed the nucleus of the modern Space Pirates. Occupied by Federation forces during the Phaaze Incident of 2027, evacuated at the conclusion of hostilities. A small group of Urtragians, calling themselves the Reclaimers, has sought to renounce their criminal ways and attempt the rehabilitation of the planet. Their efforts, though officially supported by the Federation, are being met with much skepticism from the general public.

Zebes: Former planet in the FS-176 system. Previously inhabited by Chozo, who died when the planet's Mother system went rogue in 2018. Space Pirates turned most of the southern continent into a massive underground base thereafter; the base was destroyed and the Pirate population was exterminated in 2025. Pirates retook the planet in 2029, after which a runaway reaction in the planet's core, set off by Pirate self-destruct systems, destroyed the planet.

* * *

**Our Heroes**

Samus Aran

Species: Standard Human (Transgenic)  
Sex: Female  
Height: 180 cm (5'11")  
Weight: 75 kg (165 lb)  
Hair: Blonde  
Eyes: Blue  
Date of birth: 8.6.2000  
Place of birth: Central City, K-2L  
Occupation: Fugitive recovery agent (Class A, registry #13576)  
Licenses and certifications: Pilot, interstellar, large craft/commercial; pilot, atmosphere (Federal); ground vehicles (F); personal weapons, concealed carry (F); explosives, own and use (F)

Bounty hunter _par excellence_, sometime Federation mercenary, and the last Defender of the Chozo. Really, how much more needs to be said?

Cameron Jane Donovan, ScD

Species: Standard Human  
Sex: Female  
Height: 169 cm (5'7")  
Weight: 68 kg (150 lb)  
Hair: Auburn  
Eyes: Hazel  
Date of birth: 12.18.2001  
Place of birth: Prestwick, New Anglia  
Occupation: Computer scientist  
Licenses and certifications: Ground vehicles (Local/Tian); personal weapons, own (veteran's permit)

A self-described "fleet brat" and a veteran Marine first lieutenant, CJ (as she insists on being called) first encountered Samus in 2032 when the hunter hired her to assist in the defense of an AI that was falsely identified as rogue. The case led to the uncovering of a massive political conspiracy within the highest levels of the Federation, and eventually ended in Samus and CJ breaking into a Federation naval base, murdering one of the conspirators, stealing the AI involved and then calling the coalition leader of the current government and threatening to go to the press... all of which was simply recorded as one suicide and the disposal of an ex-Navy AI. Since then, CJ has become Samus' right-hand woman, providing her with data, ship systems maintenance and the occasional electronic warfare mission. She has also become one of the few people whom Samus might call a friend.

AICAS-129 "Adam"

Hardware: AICAS Mark I  
Date of activation: 5.7.2029

The Advanced Intelligent Command Advisor System, or AICAS, is a command-grade hybrid artificial intelligence platform consisting of a memograph - a complete recording of one person's mind - integrated into a synthetic AI framework. The AICAS program was developed by the Federation Navy in an effort to field command-grade intelligences using commercial off-the-shelf components, and testing prototypes were touted as combining almost all of the capabilities of an Aurora Unit into a package small enough to be fitted to a patrol boat. The initial production series, however, developed a reputation for instability and rogue behavior, causing the Navy to shelve the program and pull the remaining units from service until a fix could be created. Later generations of AICAS traced the problem to the use of unsuitable memograph donors, and used composite memographs to surmount this problem.

AICAS-129, a Mark I unit containing the memograph of deceased Navy Commander Adam Malkovich, was initially installed aboard the Hermes-class patrol boat PH-1076, but was removed and ordered to undergo destructive analysis as a result of its actions during the "BSL Incident" of 2032. Following a rather unorthodox appeal, the unit was released to Samus, who maintains it aboard her gunship, _Hunter III._

* * *

**Armor, Weapons and Ships**

Fusion Suit

Height: 190 cm (6'3") standing; 80 cm (2'7") in morph ball configuration  
Weight: 90 kg (195 lb) empty  
Armament: Multimode cannon x1; electromagnetic mine generator x1.  
Defense: V3 armor plating (alloy-composite-ceramic laminate) with reactive shielding system.  
Life support: Complete autonomic management system.  
Data network: Onboard tactical analysis system with broadband networking capability.  
Mobility systems: Morph ball; speed boost system; boot-mounted jump augmentation system; back-mounted repulsor pack; electrostatic tether system.

Even after over twenty years of service, Samus' Chozo-designed powered armor suit still represents the pinnacle of personal armament. Mobile, powerful and capable of modular upgrades, it provides a highly flexible platform for nearly any task its wearer might ask of it.

The suit's primary offensive capability is provided by a multimode cannon, integrated into the right forearm. The cannon's default mode fires a pulsed particle beam, which can fire rapid single shots (cyclic rate: 650 rounds/min) or store the charge for a more powerful blast (2 sec to full charge); single shots will easily burn through unprotected humanoid tissues, while charged rounds will defeat light armor as well. In cryocondensed-charge or "ice" mode, the cannon uses an array of lasers to supercool a small quantity of atmospheric gas, or waste CO2 if in vacuum; the charge is then "fired" by means of a compressor. This mode is significantly slower than particle mode (cyclic rate: 150 rounds/min), but offers the advantage of temporarily paralyzing its targets. Plasma mode operates in essentially the same fashion as an oversized flamethrower, generating a high-velocity high-temperature plasma from ionized waste CO2; it offers spectacular firepower but extremely short range. (As a side feature, the plasma's velocity and energy can be throttled, turning the cannon into an arm-mounted cutting/welding torch.) The cannon also incorporates a projectile launcher, fed from a 5-round tube magazine and firing a 20-mm fin-stabilized self-guided (FSSG) shell. The shells collapse for compact storage, and come in standard and advanced capability (ADCAP) forms, including high explosive, chemical warhead and area-effect variants. With the use of expansion packs, the suit can store up to 250 additional standard or 50 ADCAP rounds. Cannon modes are selected via hand gestures within the control slots; the trigger is slaved to the index finger, while missiles are fired with the thumb. The cannon also offers auto-targeting capability, linked to the HMD (see below).

As a result of the X infection acquired on SR388, the Chozo-engineered Varia armor became contaminated and had to be removed, greatly reducing the suit's defensive capability. After Samus' return to Federation space after the BSL Incident, the suit was re-armored. The V3 armor system, developed at GFB Niihama Arsenal, was reverse engineered from the original Power Suit armor and relies upon a three-component "sandwich" consisting of alpha-titanium, laminated graphene composite and nanophase rhenium diboride ceramic. The system is lightweight, allows good mobility, and is resistant to all known small arms and many heavier projectile weapons. In addition, the suit incorporates a powered reactive shielding system, providing protection against explosively formed penetrators and some directed-energy weapons. However, it also retains the original armor's notably poor resistance to heat, chemical and radiation hazards.

Combat information management is provided by means of an HMD (helmet-mounted display) integrated into the helmet's visor. The default mode provides the wearer with energy and ammunition status, a motion tracker, and a tactical overlay that provides real-time analysis of a targeted enemy's combat status. (An enemy who is sustaining injury highlights red; one whose armor or shielding has deflected an attack highlights yellow.) The HMD will also highlight mobility targets, such as grapple points. Strategic information is provided through a dedicated scan mode, which also provides a two-way data link back to the ship's computer for detailed analysis. With the addition of a command module, this data channel can also be used to control the ship's autopilot, allowing remote command. The HMD normally operates in the visible spectrum, but can also integrate advanced imaging systems, including but not limited to thermal, backscatter X-ray and ultrasound. Switching between the HMD's modes is accomplished by tapping the left temple of the helmet.

As the armor layer defeats all but the grossest tactile feedback, a haptic system is built into the left gauntlet to allow fine motor control and retain compatibility with palmprint signature systems. External audio pickups, which can be tuned to detect very distant sounds or filtered to protect hearing in noisy environments, are connected to earpieces inside the helmet. Another pickup, mounted inside the helmet, transmits speech to the communication systems. The helmet includes an externally mounted speech synthesizer for verbal communication, which is tied into the onboard computer's translation package. In order to function with as many languages as possible while using minimal processing power, the system generates speech through high-speed formant synthesis, which results in a characteristically "flat," robotic-sounding output.

The suit relies on a combination pressure system; the helmet, gloves and boots are gas-pressurized, while the rest of the body is mechanically pressurized by means of a skin-tight undergarment, extending from neck to ankles. The pressure layer also contains "pass-through" ports that allow for life-support connections and neural interfaces. While the armor is air- and water-tight in its own regard, it is normally allowed to equalize with ambient pressure. As a result, the wearer's mobility is preserved in vacuum operations, and a penetration of the armor will not cause a decompression accident, which provides greater survivability. The gap between the armor and the pressure layer can also be artificially decompressed as a temperature control measure. The suit can tolerate pressure conditions ranging from vacuum to 1000 kPa and temperature conditions from 3 K (-270 deg C) to 373 K (100 deg C). Nutrition, hydration and sanitation are handled by an autonomic management system, which allows long-term, closed-cycle operation by bypassing the wearer's digestive tract entirely. The system uses stored energy and raw materials from the recycling systems to synthesize a total parenteral nutrition (TPN) solution, the composition of which is continually tailored to the wearer's activity level. This solution is then injected into the wearer's bloodstream via a permanently implanted central venous port in the wearer's upper left chest. Waste products are removed through a renal shunt and recycled. This system expends approximately 10 kilowatts (KW) per day of normal activity; a single full energy tank can power the system for up to 10 days, or longer if activity is restricted (see below). Note that the wearer cannot consume food or drink orally, save for small amounts of water or ice chips, while the system is active. The suit's onboard reserves of consumables (oxygen, water, TPN) are kept quite small, as the life-support systems can continually recycle the wearer's outputs as long as they have sufficient energy available.

Energy storage and management is provided by a high-efficiency direct carbon fuel cell stack linked to a series of expandable storage tanks. In addition to electrical output, the fuel cell generates large amounts of heat, which are recovered by a downstream thermopile system, allowing for increased efficiency. Waste heat remaining after this process is either used to maintain the suit's internal temperature or exhausted to environment. Each tank contains enough carbon to generate 100 kilowatts (KW) of power. The suit also contains its own onboard 100-KW tank, of which 1 KW is always held in reserve for emergency life support, causing the energy management system to always report capacity in increments of 99. The system is fuel-flexible, and can run on anything from pure carbon (preferred) to a range of short-chain hydrocarbons. The system can be refueled from any standard refueling station. If no such station is handy, the system can recover small amounts of carbon from environmental sources (gases of combustion, etc) and use these to refuel itself, albeit at a severely reduced efficiency. These "energy targets" will highlight in the HMD if the system requires fuel.

The suit is directly linked to the wearer's peripheral nervous system, providing instantaneous response to the wearer's movements. This system also augments the wearer's strength and speed, allowing sustained run speeds over 30 KPH. An optional speed boost system can increase the suit's maximum speed to 80 KPH.

No discussion of the suit would be complete without a review of the morph ball. Activated by kneeling and tucking into a forward roll, the morph ball reconfigures the armor plating to compact both suit and wearer into a sphere slightly less than a meter in diameter. In this mode, the wearer maneuvers by shifting body weight within the sphere, and exits by pushing both feet against the sphere's interior. The HMD will display an artificially generated area view to allow wearer navigation and situational awareness. The morph ball's only armament is an electrostatic mine generator. This device drops "bombs" of concentrated ionized gas, similar to ball lightning. The charge imparted to each bomb can be varied, which allows a great deal of flexibility in deployment; in varying charge levels, these bombs can be used to stun or damage enemies, break certain materials or propel the ball vertically. The ball may also incorporate a variant of the speed boost system, allowing the use of parallel wall formations as "half-pipes."

Libran Arms Corp. SP-21 "Paralyzer"

Type: Electrolaser, non-lethal, auto-charging  
Ammunition: N/A  
Capacity: 50 discharges  
Overall dimensions: 25 cm (length) x 20 cm (height) x 5 cm (width)

Samus' traditional backup weapon when out of her armor, the Paralyzer is a non-lethal stun pistol utilizing the "electrolaser" concept, in which a laser is used to ionize the air along a path leading to the intended target. This ion channel is then used to rapidly conduct a large pulse of electricity to the target, overloading its nervous system and theoretically incapacitating it. The Paralyzer is powered by a rechargeable power cell stored in the weapon's grip. Due to their non-lethal nature and their ability to disable electronic as well as organic targets, Paralyzers are popular weapons in law enforcement and fugitive apprehension.

The Paralyzer has several limitations, most notably its ineffectiveness in vacuum, its short range and its slow recharge time (3 seconds between shots). Additionally, though it works very well on a wide range of unprotected targets, its performance against any form of armor or energy shielding is laughably poor. Samus herself once wryly described the Paralyzer as "rather useless" when forced to infiltrate a Space Pirate facility with it as her only weapon.

Pistol, Semiautomatic Coil, 5mm, Model 9 Block 3

Type: Superconducting coilgun  
Ammunition: 5x10mm caseless ferromagnetic jacket (FMJ)  
Capacity: 35 rounds standard; larger magazines available  
Overall dimensions: 21 cm (overall length) x 14 cm (height) x 4 cm (width); 12.5 cm barrel length

The M9 pistol has been the standard issue officer's sidearm of the Federation Defense Forces for the last twenty-five years. Its predecessor, the venerable Berline 59, served with the armed forces of the United Earth Colonies for another half-century before that, making the "59 clone" one of the most popular and enduring military sidearm designs in history.

Like all coilguns, the M9 propels a metal projectile down its barrel by means of a powerful magnetic field, provided by a series of superconducting coils arranged along the barrel's length. When the weapon is fired, a small power cell contained in the magazine energizes the coils in sequence, accelerating the projectile and causing it to spin in flight, akin to the "rifling" effect achieved by chemical-powered firearms. Pistols of this type can generate muzzle velocities of over 600 m/sec, enough to defeat low-grade body armor. As the M9 only contains one moving part (the magazine feed mechanism) and the projectile never touches the barrel, it is an extremely quiet and reliable weapon. A properly maintained M9 can serve for 50 years or more, limited only by power cell life and coil integrity.

It is a fairly common practice for Federation officers to purchase their sidearms back from the military upon leaving the service, allowing them to keep these "paid off" weapons for civilian use. CJ did this with her Marine-issue M9B3, which she keeps for sport shooting and self-defense.

Hunter III

Registry: AFSCC786621GHH301 Hunter-class gunship  
Length: 15 m  
Height: 4.5 m in landed configuration; 2.5 m in flight configuration  
Beam: 10 m  
Power plant: Fedtech S9G GCNI (gas cooled nuclear isomer) reactor x1  
Engines: Annular aerospike x2, directed-thrust capable; FTL bubble drive x1  
Armament: Pulsed particle cannon x4 (nose-mounted); "Lancet-M" missile launcher x2 (wing-mounted)

The third incarnation of the iconic Hunter-class gunship features several improvements over its predecessors. For one, it's significantly larger (the III boasts 85 cubic meters of pressurized space, while the II had 60 and the original Hunter had a positively spartan 30). Its offensive loadout is massively improved; while the first and second Hunters relied upon a pair of small lasers for point defense, the III sports a quad-pack of high-output particle beam weapons as well as two missile launchers firing a miniaturized version of the Federation "Lancet" anti-shipping missile. It also has a greater range, thanks to larger fuel bunkerage and more efficient engines. Its performance in microgravity is identical to its brethren, although it suffers somewhat in a gravity well due to its higher mass and use of directed thrusters instead of repulsors for S/VTOL (Short/Vertical Take-Off and Landing) operations. It is atmosphere capable up to 300 kPa and can escape a gravity well up to 5 G.

Like most modern spacecraft, the Hunter-class runs on "fuel gel," a naturally occurring tar-like substance containing high levels of the metastable nuclear isomer Hf-178-m2, which undergoes gamma de-excitation upon X-ray stimulation to produce extremely high amounts of energy. This energy is captured as heat by the coolant in the power plant. The remaining mass of the fuel, which is more or less inert, is fed to the engines as working mass, where it is heated by the high-temperature coolant and exhausted. High-efficiency thermopiles in the coolant loop "downstream" of the engines provide ship electrical power. _Hunter III_'s power plant uses the GFDF-standard gas-cooled design, a rugged, low-overhead unit that can easily be maintained under a variety of conditions. Disadvantages include reactor size (civilian designs, which typically use liquid metal coolants, are much smaller owing to the lack of a compressor/exchanger but sacrifice user serviceability) and the risk of a coolant loss accident. The 9th-generation design used in the _Hunter III_ contains multiple redundant safeguards against this, as well as a last-ditch, passive emergency shutdown ("scram") mode.

_Hunter III,_ like the previous two craft in its class, incorporates several features designed to optimize it for single-operator use. An advanced AI system allows the ship to be auto-started, auto-piloted and auto-landed, and handles most routine maintenance tasks. Additionally, the ship features a remote command function, linked to a dedicated communication system in the Fusion Suit. As the suit contains an extremely limited user interface for "on the fly" command programming, typically this system will be pre-loaded aboard ship with "macro" commands, commonly including recall/return-to-base, remote airlift and remote airstrike operations.

* * *

**"Showing Your Work" - Author's Notes  
**

Per reader poll, here it is: the bible for the Intelligence Series. This piece will be revised and expanded as later chapters appear, to avoid spoiling the stories' plot lines.

Nearly all the information detailed here comes straight from canon (games first, manuals and manga second). The items of author conjecture, such as the chemistry of fuel gel, the workings of the Power Suit's life support systems and the political history of the Galactic Federation, are all extensions of real-life events or technologies, imagined to fit into the established canon of the games. The use of "Applied Phlebotinum" (tm TVTropes Wiki) was avoided as much as humanly possible. :-)

Information on Samus' early childhood comes from the _Metroid_ manga as translated to English by SnoopyCool, some of which is re-cited in various games' instruction manuals. The capabilities of Samus' armor were directly measured during game playthroughs, as were the external dimensions of her various ships. The fall of the Chozo and the rise of the Space Pirates were drawn from lore entries, mostly from _Metroid Prime_ and _Metroid Prime 3: Corruption_ but including evidence from other games as well. Information on the Galactic Federation Defense Forces largely comes from _Metroid Prime 3: Corruption_, with a few additions from _Metroid Prime 2: Echoes_. Where in-game planets appear, information on those planets comes from evidence in the corresponding game.

Inspiration credit for this work goes to KefkaFloyd and Insomniac By Choice, whose outstanding series _See You Next Mission_ provided the impetus to, as the header says, "show my work" and create a story universe that was both realistically feasible and consistent with the games' events.


End file.
